Potter Who and the Wossname's Thingummy
by ForrestUUID
Summary: No TARDIS, no screwdriver, and no memory - on the plus side, an owl and a wand! May or may not be AU. "It's all in the mind, you know."
1. Station To Station

_Hickory dickory dock,  
The mouse ran up the clock.  
The clock struck one,  
the mouse ran down.  
Hickory, dickory, dock._

—Nursery Rhyme.

#

**Station to Station.**

He awoke in the middle of sitting up.

_I'm alive!_

_That's good. I like being alive..._

Quick look round.

He was alive and surrounded. Not so good.

"Are you all right, young man?"

"What's your name? Where are your parents?"

Surrounded by strangers concerned for him? — very good!

"Where did that guard go...?"

Right, don't need any of _that_. He leaped to his feet, not nearly as far as he was expecting.

"Me?" he said. "Perfectly fine, never better. Parents?" Perhaps it was a philosophical question. "Oh, they're around somewhere. It's a big universe, I can't keep track of all of it all the time. —Now isn't _that_ interesting..."

To the left and right there were open spaces with signs reading 9 and 10 respectively. Directly in front of him there was a brick dividing wall, a wall plain and ordinary and somehow _not_ — not plain, not ordinary, possibly even not at all.

"What's your name?"

Questions, questions, what did it matter what his name was? Why couldn't people just let him work? No, no, they're doing right, they're just taking care of the child and it's not even their own...

...What child? Where child? He'd missed something.

"Me?" he said, and continued to contemplate the peculiar barrier in front of him while bits of his mind ran down the crowd. Still no policemen, that was good, late twentieth century, train station — King's Cross? thank you — commuters in a hurry looking mainly for reassurance to get on with their lives, _except for that one family over there with the red hair_, oh, they were even better than the brick dividing wall. Had someone asked a question? Oh yes, name. "I'm the—"

Blank.

_The_? he said to himself. I'm _The_?

_Yes, that's right, _said another bit of his brain. _You're The. Pleased to meet you, The._

_You can't be a definite article!_ said still another bit.

_I can be whoever I like,_ said a hitherto unknown bit.

It was a perfectly good question in a set of perfectly good questions. _Why am I here, how did I get here, who are my parents, what is my name? _That would be _Don't Know, Don't Know, Don't Know, _and, hmm, yes, _Don't Know._

A particularly clever bit of his mind handed him a mental note, pointing out that according to his quick look around there was an identification tag on the trunk behind him, which trunk was almost certainly in his possession.

Less than a tenth of a second had gone by.

"I'm Harry Potter," he announced. "Harry _James_ Potter, Number Four Privet Lane, Little Whinging, Surrey." _Big_ trunk. Ambient temperature, position of sun and plumage condition of owl indicate late summer/early autumn. Add that to the train station, and: "Off — to — school. Transportation at hand, leaving momentarily, think nothing of it. If I find any trouble I'll run straight to the nearest police...man," he concluded. _Owl?_ "Yes. No worries then, anyone! Yes, I am definitely Harry Potter, that is who I am, and what tiny little feet I have," he added, looking down at his trainers.

Fortunately he'd added the last part _sotto voce_.

He gave everyone his brightest smile, which satisfied most of them, and the crowd began to break up.

"You fell right over, dear," said one of the stragglers. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yes, perfectly," he said, presenting a pair of broken glasses that his hands had picked up all on their own, clever things. "Terribly nearsighted, always tripping over the unseen." He peered through the glasses at the nice lady. "Going to get a new set. Pair. Or fix these if I can find my—"

Blank.

Find my what?

Thing?

Pronoun?

"—repair kit!" he said. He stowed the glasses in his pocket, and pulled out the train ticket he found therein. "—And incidentally, ma'am, you absolutely should."

"Should what?"

"Take the job. You're more than qualified. Although playing on the double-u and double-v simultaneously is a bit cruel." Ticket: _Hogwarts Express, King's Cross Platform 9 3/4, 11:00 1st September 1991,_ station time currently 10:50...

"I—I what?" said the woman. "—Oops!"

The "oops" came when she saw that her overdue train had in fact arrived and was indeed about to leave without her, so he didn't have to explain _why_ he had said what he'd said, which was good because he didn't actually _know_ — what a fascinating sensation! How did he know what he knew that he didn't know, but knew? _Running off at the mind again, slow down._ It was something to do with the newspaper puzzle page she was holding, and the book under her arm, and the note sticking out of _that_—

"Excuse me," said the _different_ red-haired woman he had noticed before. "Did you say you were...Harry Potter?"

"I certainly did," he said, looking her straight in the jacket and moving his hand between the top of his head and her top button. He examined his tiny little fingers. _Why am I so _small_? Perhaps I should ask someone. No, that would be a Bad Idea. "_I may even _be_ Harry Potter," he added, but only to himself.

And, incidentally, again: owl? Best keep an eye on that.

Also: trunk.

He whirled and bent down and righted the owl cage and popped open the lid of the trunk.

Telescope! always a good sign. Cauldron? Well, why not. Wand...

Wand?

_The Standard Book Of Spells_?

Shiny thing! Set of brass scales! He picked them up and tried to look at himself in their polished undersides but they wasn't reflective enough.

Bother.

Drop scales, close trunk, sit on top, cross legs casually. "Oh, hello," he said to the nice red-haired lady, who was staring him directly in the hairline. "And hello, hello-hello, and hello," he added to her children of various sizes and states of genetic similarity, the oldest of whom also had an owl. "Oh, and hello," he appended to the smallest one, who had hidden behind her mum and was peering out at him with huge wide eyes. "Who's a little mad pony then?" he thought about saying but didn't.

He raised his hand to his forehead and found a raised ridge of skin, presumably what the splendid red-haired lady was looking at. "Do you know, it is just possible I hit my head, so if I seem a bit weird or off that's _undoubtedly_ why."

"It _is_ him! It's _him!_" said the little mad pony. Famous already? That was generally bad.

"Yes, Ginny, don't fuss. _And that means you too, both of you!_" she hissed at the genetic duplicates. "Are you having trouble getting onto the platform...Harry?" She was indicating the peculiar barrier with her elbow. So she knew it was odd too, eh? Excellent! "You should probably come along with us if you're all alone."

All alone...

"That," he said, bouncing to his feet, "sounds like a jolly good idea!" He held up his ticket. "I couldn't help but notice that the signage in this station is distinctly suboptimal. Delighted to meet you, Mrs. Weasley."

"Er," she said. Of course she hadn't introduced herself.

He just smiled.

#

"Ah," he said a bit later. "Well, at least it's clearly labeled on the other side..." _A portal you pass if you expect to pass, amazing!_

He spun around and around, absorbing everything.

Obviously this platform couldn't fit in between the other two platforms, very different place, could be miles away, no, kilometers now, late twentieth century. Or was it even the same era, given the scarlet steam engine on the rails? The anachronism! and the clothes weren't just mixed eras, they were legitimately surreal! And someone had a tarantula! _And_ there was a missing toad! This was Christmas, or at least Boxing Day!

"—Did someone say prefect?" he asked.

"I have that privilege," said a Weasley: Percy, trying on self-importance to see how it fit.

_Don't worry if the sleeves are too long, you'll find they'll ride up with wear,_ thought the Potter-_pro-tempore_. "Just the sort of person I'll need to talk to," he said. "Got lots of academic questions."

"I'll be delighted," said Percy, while his twin brothers made valiant attempts to induce vomiting behind his back. "Must dash now, obligations and responsibilities, but feel free to drop by the prefect car up front after the train gets under way. Splendid meeting you, Mr Potter." With a genial nod he wafted away in his black school robes.

_Black school robes_, yes, splendid idea — he looked at his sleeve — gray was not his colour, or indeed a colour at all come to think of it.

"Which car do you prefer, Ronald?" said Mrs Weasley, laying her hands on his luggage cart. "This one I hope?" She meant the one right in front of her, the second-to-last.

"Any car that isn't behind Fred and George," said the boy who wasn't a twin. "They'll pull the connector and leave me behind."

"Don't be ridiculous, tiny Ron," said Fred. "We couldn't do that."

"The connectors are double-banjax-proofed," said George.

"Found that out last year when we were in this very car."

"WHAT?" said their mother.

"So we _heard!_ —Ow!"

"Ow!"

"OW!"

"Would you mind if I share a cabin with you, Ron?" said the Potter.

"Get away?!" said Ron.

"No," said the Potter thoughtfully, "more stick right by you, actually."

"That would be great!"

"Then — done! Mrs Weasley — if I might ask a question?"

"By all means, dear."

"Assume that I'm in a world totally new to me." He waved in the general direction of, well, everything. "What would be the best cultural guidebook I could get my hands on, and where would I get it?"

"Hmm," said Mrs Weasley. "That's a bit like asking a fish for a book about water, dear. You should have Bagshot's _A History Of Magic_ in with your coursebooks—"

"Rubbish!" said Fred. "The index is pants."

"Worthless!" said George. "Unless you can't sleep."

"Then it's better than paregoric."

"And quicker. In any case it's the wrong book."

"Asenion Izzard's _Biographical Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Wizardry_, that's what you want," they said.

"And what would _you_ two know about such things?" inquired their mother.

"We do our research, woman!"

"And we're easily bored."

Fred leaned down a bit. "It's got who's who, what's what, and not a word wasted."

George followed. "It's in the school library. Or just find a sixth or seventh-year Ravenclaw on the train."

The Potter added the word Ravenclaw to his vocabulary with an unknown-definition tag.

"I see," said Mrs Weasley, applying the hairy eyeball where appropriate. "And would it be too much to ask that either of you crack _an actual schoolbook once in a while?_"

"You know, mum," said Fred, "some of the greatest wizards of our age never actually grad...u...oh, look, George, the train's here. Bye mum! See you in June! —_Hey, Lee!_"

The Potter watched with fascination as they fled up-platform with their carts toward the boy with the tarantula, propelled by a fiery glare at their backs.

"Oh, those boys," said Mrs (Margaret? Minerva? Molly? probably Molly) Weasley. "They will be the death of me. If I hadn't taken that temp job in Chiswick—oh, and now I have to get Ron's trunk aboard all by myself? Bah!" She whipped out a wand and _levitated_ both the luggage carts into the open doors. "Why they don't have ramps on this train I'll never understand."

The Potter joined the smaller Weasley in unloading the carts into a carriage — he placed the owl cage carefully in the luggage rack overhead — and then in pushing the carts back outside. The Potter watched as they drifted and spun like huge amazing metal floaty things.

"Goodbye, dear," said Mrs Weasley to her remaining son. "Study as though your hide depended on it."

"_Thanks,_ mum," said Ron. "—_Waurgh!_ You promised no kissing in the station!"

"I lied," said Mrs Weasley briskly, and wiped a smudge from his nose. "Very nice meeting you, Harry."

She stepped back from the train just as the doors closed.

There was a whistle from the fore, just as the clock in the station turned 11:00.

_That seems auspicious,_ thought the Potter. _I wonder why?_

There was a mirror on the back of the compartment door, and he saw himself in full for the first time. And houses going past in the window behind, interesting, _I wonder if they notice us?_

"Dear me," he said. "No wonder I don't know who I am. What kind of a chin do you call this? It's more of an IOU. Is that where I hit the ground, oh, _no_, it's a _nose_... And this _hair!_ Don't I own a comb? And the _colour!_ —Would you like to trade?" he added, catching the Weasley's eye in the reflection.

"What — trade hair? You want to be ginger?"

"Merlin's filtrum, yes! Years and years. —Is that the right kind of swear, by the way?"

"Erm," said the Weasley. "Try beard."

"Ooh, I'd love to try a beard," said the Potter, stroking his tiny chin. "—No, yes, _Merlin's_ beard, point taken."

And the clothes! Clearly hand-me-downs, perhaps from a different species. No one had been at the train station with him: orphan? Raised by wolves? That might have been an improvement.

But you can replace clothes easily; replacing parents takes work. Ergo, robes. Where? Trunk.

#

"Now that's a _bit_ more like it," he said.

The tie was too long, but once tucked in that didn't matter, and you couldn't really go wrong with academic robes. The black dunce cap, though — he tried poking the pointy end down into the body so it was less of a cone and more of a narrowing cylinder, which was better, but... wrong colour, it wasn't _him_.

Of course, _he_ probably wasn't him either, but there was no helping that.

And there had been no doubt about it, once down to his skivvies: he was a child. Not shrunk-in-the-wash, not half-off sale, an actual child. And he knew that didn't happen.

_I'm a sprat! And a Jack Sprat at that_, he thought, feeling his xylophonic ribs. Well, that could be addressed as well, thanks to some of the other contents of the trunk. "Is there a tea trolley on this train?" he said.

"I think so, but it would start up by the prefects, and it won't get to us for _years_." The Weasley hesitated. "I've got some sandwiches."

"_Sandwiches?_ We're growing boys, we don't want sandwiches, we want chocolate-crusted unidentifiables and straws with sugar in." He flung wide the compartment door. "Come along, Weasley!"

Once outside he felt lightheaded — not with hunger, light in the best possible way. To be sure there were things he couldn't remember, like his actual name, which he rather suspected wasn't Harry Truman (_Potter,_ yes, thank you) but he had the strangest feeling that among them were a great many he'd been trying not to think about for a long, long time.

Well, set that aside, first things first: where is the missing toad, and why would the Weasley twins try to detach the last car in the train? Well that was obvious, that's where they keep the w.c.

The Weasley followed him into the corridor — entirely too hesitantly, that would never do. The Potter presented him with a handful of coins. "You go on ahead, got to see a man about a frog."

"What? Er," said the Weasley, staring down at the mixture of bronze, silver and gold discs as through they were attached to tiny athletes. "This is—"

"Not enough?"

"It's plenty, but—"

"Keep the change, then, I've got a hole in my pocket." He pulled his pocket inside out to demonstrate that it did, indeed, have a hole in it. "Off you go, I'll soon catch you up."

#

Scotland bound! The Potter did a little dance while walking — not the full Highland Fling, not on a moving vehicle, besides there wasn't room, but he alluded, he alluded. You could learn quite a bit just keeping your eyes and ears open while dancing up a train, or even just walking. Metonymic villain, Potter family, almost diagrammatically _exploded_ metonymic villain, inexplicable orphan survivor raised by "muggles", and that orphan was — guess who?

He could hear the engine chugging along, up ahead. Were they using magic coal? Maybe he'd go ask. Maybe — he'd always wanted to drive a steam engine, and since he was, apparently, The Boy Who Lived, a/k/a The Chosen One (you could tell by the scar), maybe they'd let him drive, _just call me "Trains" Potter,_ no, _don't_, table that idea.

Students not much bigger than he ran up and down the corridors, screaming, laughing; he slid past them. A couple of bigger ones were having a water fight using wands. Magic magic magic, ooh, couldn't be technology, it didn't make any _sense_ as technology... Wait a tick — magic? he could _be_ ginger, couldn't he? There must be some sort of charm for it. Did Hogwarts teach that sort of thing, or did he need to find Pigwings School of Hairdressing and Cosmetology?

#

Two cars and some productive social interaction later he found the Weasley, who had stopped to tie his shoelace. In a world of magic? Yes, in a world of magic.

"Ron!" he said, sweeping up the corridor rubbing his hands together. "You remember what I said about wishing we could swop hair?"

"...Yeah?"

"Would you be at all interested in actually doing it? Because done it can be. Pinky-swear, saying no won't hurt my feelings."

The Weasley blinked. "What, you _really_ want to?"

"Yeah!"

The Weasley's face went vague. The Potter could see the thoughts going through his head, but then who couldn't?

_New school. Nobody knows me (except my brothers who will hassle me either way). _I _can be _different_._

"Okay," said the Weasley. "How?"

"On my way up the train I found a couple of seventh-years who said they can do it."

"Found? How'd you do that?"

"I just looked in the windows until I found a compartment of amazingly pretty girls, knocked and popped my head in and said _Hello, I'm Harry Potter, you're amazingly pretty, could I ask you a hair-related question?_

_"_And they do it all the time, it's how they try different looks. It's hygienic, though, it's just a property transfer, the actual hair stays the same.

"—Tea trolley first, though, and I want to visit the prefects."

#

They found the tea lady in the next car, and the Potter continued engineward, leaving the Weasley in charge of the table of fare.

There were only two cars left, and that probably meant — here he opened the next door — that yes, this was the dining car, and it was full of exciting modern young people decorated with P shields. Wait, that sounded terrible. Silver Prefect shields.

"Oh, hello!" he said. "I'm Shorty Baker — no no no. Harry Potter, that's me. And you're the prefects, yes? Percy! Nice to see you again! Exactly everyone I want to meet. I wonder if I might ask you a few questions if you're not too busy."

"It's what we're for, Mr Potter," said Percy Weasley.

"Oh, splendid. You see, I don't know anything. Apparently I was raised by wolves, or madmen or industrial robots or something. On my way up the train I picked up a bit, but explain it me _ab ovo_. I value all input. Haven't been Sorted, you know."

A carload of prefects from highly competetive Houses exchanged predatory looks. Except the Hufflepuffs, who just looked sort of wistful.

"Oh, and incidentally," continued the Potter, reaching into his inside pocket, "is there a lost-things office? I found this toad in the loo. Apparently his name is Trevor."

Trevor said _bwork_.

#

"Would you like a — would you like several bags for that?" the tea lady was saying to the Weasley when the Potter got back.

Eleven minutes with the prefects had been quite educational, not least because he'd scored the Asenion Izzard book as well as _The Magical Tradition: A Teacher's Guide,_ from a Ravenclaw and a Slytherin respectively. Also a copy of _Prefects: Rites & Responsibilities_ for what that was worth.

"Yes, please," said the Weasley, slightly buckled under the load. "Or a box? A box would be good. —Yeah, that's, thank you," he added, spilling armloads of assorted foodlike objects into the supplied container.

"Anything for you, dear?" asked the tea lady of the Potter.

"Cup of tea and a newspaper would do me," said the Potter, looking at the cart, which was bare — correction: full. Somewhere the owner of a big-box retail chain turned over uncomfortably in his sleep, and the Potter reached in his pocket and found a hole. His lips started to move, _no, bad thing, there is but he really wants to keep it, do not say_ — "Er. _Was_ there any change, Ron?" _I told you not to say it! What good is an internal monologue you don't listen to?!_

"Um..." said the Weasley.

"Oh my goodness," said the suddenly startled tea lady, her gaze clearly stuck on The Scar. "I don't wish to be rude, but aren't you...?"

He laid his index finger across his lips and winked. "Yes, I am, but don't tell anyone, I want it to be a surprise."

"Mum's the word for me," she said, and presented him with a magical-styrofoam cup of tea with a slice of lemon stuck onto the edge, and a copy of something called _The Daily Prophet_, which had what he presumed were tomorrow's lottery results in a box atop the front page, plus a headline of _No Leads In Gringotts Grab_. "Compliments of us all, I'm sure," she said.

"Thank you so much, very kind of you!" said the Potter.

"Think nothing of it, dear," she said, and rattled away.

The Potter regarded the box and its contents. "Haha, look at all that! Let us redistribute this burden," he said, and began stashing various items away in his pockets. "There, that's seems more equitable. Now, let us be off, young Weasley, our piliform destiny awaits!"

#

One was a Hufflepuff, the other was a Ravenclaw, neither was named Sandy but each came close. They were currently watching the Potter having an intimate moment with a mirror.

"Oh, this is _much_ better," said the Potter. "Narcissus had nothing on me. Green eyes and red hair, there hasn't been a combination like this since green eggs and ham. —Don't shove in front, Ron, it's rude."

Sandee the Ravenclaw, in a positive cloud of affected detachment, said to the Weasley, "Would you like me to adjust the gamma? Grey would suit those blue eyes."

"Num," said the Weasley, staring at his reflection. "Erm. No thank you."

The Potter caught the eye of Sandi the Hufflepuff. "Will these colors flip back all at once, or fade, or...?"

"It should hold full-strength indefinitely," she said, "until one of you decides it just doesn't work for you."

"Thank you _very_ much ladies, if I can ever save the world for you do not hesitate to call. —Tear yourself away, Weasley, there will be other mirrors."

They made their way back into the corridor. The Potter was vaguely aware that the Hufflepuff and the Ravenclaw decorously refrained from falling out of their seats laughing until the door was shut again.

#

The Weasley pushed the Potter past the cabin containing Fred and George. "You don't want to talk to them. They'll just ask you if you remember what You-Know-Who looks like." Also I don't want to share right now, said his undercurrent.

"I can honestly say I don't," said the Potter. "Speaking of relatives, your mum's name is Molly, isn't it?"

"Yeah! How'd you know?"

"Didn't, I took a guess based on the initials on her handbag. And the little one, Ginny. Virginia doesn't sound quite right."

"Ginevra, but don't call her that or she'll bite you. She's coming up next year."

"She did seem a bit excitable."

"Well — you're you!"

"Everyone is," said the Potter. "Well, not literally. Although that can happen." He sipped his nearly-forgotten tea. "Amazing!" he said. "Truly magical. My tea is still hot! Now I need...I need...what do I need?"

He set his tea on a convenient overhead shelf and sent his hands on a search of his pockets until they found a bag with a label that read _Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans_.

"That's what I need, yes!" he said, tearing it open.

"You've got to be careful with those," cautioned the Weasley, "they really are—"

"Ooh, _menthol!_"

"—every flavor..." The Weasley trailed off, and regarded the Potter's delight. "Harry, have you ever noticed that you're completely mental?"

The Potter poked himself in the chest experimentally. "Am I? Surely not."

He picked up his tea and led the Weasley downtrain, occasionally pausing at shiny surfaces, though the connecting door into the next car. At the far end of the car was a small set of students heading uptrain, two large dark ones led by a small pale blond one, and as the door behind him closed another thought struck him.

"Maybe I can change my name, too!" said the Potter.

"Change your _name?_ Why would you want to do that?"

"Why wouldn't I want to change my name?" said the Potter. "I mean, _Harry Potter_? What kind of a boring name is that?" Something appeared in his mind unbidden. "_Draco Malfoy,_ that's a _cool_ name. You could be _properly_ famous with a name like that — become a hugely popular author, _the latest novel from Draco Malfoy,_ you'd sell twice as many copies. Who'd buy a book with 'Harry Potter' on the cover? why are you tugging my sleeve, am I about to bump into — oh, hello, and who are you?"

"Draco Malfoy," identified the Draco Malfoy, with careful blandness. "And you are...?"

"This's Harry Potter," said the Weasley. Possessively...?

"Such does indeed appear to be the case," said the Potter. _I expect I'll answer to Harry Potter one way or another, _he thought.

"I think we've met," said the Malfoy; after giving the Weasley a puzzled flick of a glance his gaze settled, yes, on the Scar. "At Madam Malkin's? But you had different hair..."

"Yes, black just wasn't really me. Blond's good too," he added, popping half his glasses on and perusing the Malfoy thoughtfully. Cruelly tidy hair, unnatural bravado, slight crinkle of fear at eye corners, probable doting mother and disciplinarian father, note subtle but expensive green and silver (Slytherin House, note to self: Slytherin serpent makes sense, Gryffindor lion nearly does, why is Ravenclaw House mascot not a raven?) custom edging on robes despite House sorting not done yet. "And since there's all this magic around, I thought, why not? But no, I've been blond already." He put his half-glass away. "I think...must have been in the summer..."

"_The_ Harry Potter?" There appeared to be some doubt despite the Scar.

"Or so I've been led to believe. Sorry if we've met and I don't remember you, had a nasty knock and came over all amnesic. We make progress, we make progress. Would you care for a jelly bean?"

"We'll pass, thank you," said the Malfoy. "I've been looking for you, Potter; I thought it might be worth introducing myself. You've entered a complicated world and can use...solid, reliable connections."

"Like a friend in Slytherin, yes?" The Potter took another jellybean and popped it in his mouth. Ginkgo biloba? "Well, naturally I want to be in the proper house. Had a jolly nice chat with the Slytherin prefects just now. Still, riddle me this — Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor, who are the most famous members of those houses, ever?"

"One who must not be named, one I don't know, one nobody's ever heard of, and Albus Dumbledore."

Had the Malfoy just let something slip? There was some indication.

"Well, there you are then. If _nobody's_ ever heard of him, I'll bet you a Jammie Dodger that whoever is _really_ running things, behind the scenes, is a Hufflepuff. The Gryffindors are too busy rushing in where angels fear to tread, the Ravenclaws can't pry their noses out of their books and the Slytherins are too busy politicking. So the prefects told me. Well, I say they told me, the Hufflepuffs didn't say much, they just sighed a bit. Do you know, I heard they actually machinate during dinner, Slytherins?" The prefect car had looked like a battlefield when he'd left it, despite his best efforts at mediation.

The Malfoy looked like he was trying to remember what he'd had for pudding, and failing because he hadn't been able to enjoy it. "That's...as may be. But if you ever do _recover_ from your head injury, Potter, feel free to look me up."

"I shall certainly do that," said the Potter with complete honesty, looking the Malfoy directly in the eyes.

The Malfoy blinked. "Crabbe, Goyle — come. We have...things to do."

#

Wizard candy was, well, _wizard_.

Deeble's Exploding Rock Candy had been worrisome, but the teeth it blew out pushed right back in. Caramel Tar Pits were everything they promised, complete with small Pleistocene vertebrates. Thurber's Self-Chewing Chewing Gum saved a lot of bother; the Drooble Blowing Gum people could learn something there...

The Chocolate Frogs had gone over particularly well. A little too well. The pretzel bones in the crunchy ones were really quite salty, and the Weasley had gone off to see whether the tea lady had any actual tea left, and possibly visit the w.c. for an extended period of time.

Which was good, because it left the Potter alone with his borrowed books.

He picked up the Izzard and inhaled it.

The smell of fresh book, hardly a hand ever laid upon it, rather crudely formulated pulp for the era, wouldn't it go yellow almost instantly with that acid content? but it was magic, then, wasn't it, and there were probably compensatory charms (his right hand was trying to dogear a page and it wouldn't dog. It bent, but the fibers wouldn't crush) and what was that in the ink? was that really octopus?

Then he read it.

And then he read it again.

Franz Mesmer was a wizard, but Nikola Tesla _wasn't_? What a strange world...

#

He had the book pressed up against his ear when the girl came in.

"Excuse me—" and here her train of thought derailed — "Are you listening to your books?" she said.

"Of course," he said, dropping the Izzard into his lap. "Don't you?"

After a pause exactly long enough for him to infer that she was not wizard-born, she said "No, I don't care for audio books. Is that _gum_ holding your glasses together? Oh, you've got Weben Euger! I've got that too. Wait, _Teacher's Guide?_ You shouldn't have that!" She was scandalized, but only momentarily. "Oh, and what's that one? I don't have that one. Asenion Izzard, how is it?" Rather a beige girl, all teeth and frizzy hair, reading well above her grade level, with confidence indicating solid parental backup, probably professionals or academics...

"A bit remixey if you know what I mean," said the Potter, holding up a Thurber's wrapper in case she was still interested in the gum question. "Tastes of other books as opposed to pulling unique facts from personal papers, but well organized. And the index really is well done, he missed hardly anything. If you want a reference book of this type, thumbs up." He gave it a thumbs up and trailed onward, looking at his tiny thumbs. "It is thumbs up, isn't it? You'd think it would be down, especially given the Roman occupation..."

"The Roman occupation was building highways," said the girl, with an edge of quotation, busily writing in a small notebook. "100,000 miles in England alone, how did they find the time while taking all those baths?"

"The ISMBN is 0-7851-0831-9," said the Potter, watching the end of her pen move. _And why are there two zeds in Izzard when izzard just means zed?_ he wondered while waiting until she finished. _That's a recursive spelling._ "May I be of some _other_ assistance?"

"Oh, my goodness, I completely forgot. Have you seen a toad about?"

"I turned one in at the Lost Entities box."

"That's where we found it the first time," she said. "But it's gone again." She ducked her head back into the hall briefly. "Now _Neville_'s lost, I expect. It's his toad...

"I'm Hermione Granger, by the way."

"And _I_ am the famous Eccles! But I'm traveling under the name Harry Potter to avoid notice. And that's Ron Weasley creeping up behind you..." She didn't recognise the name Eccles? _It's all in the Goon Show, all in the Goon Show, blimey, what do they teach them at these schools!_

"Could I just get into my own compartment, please?" said Ron.

"Sorry. —You're Harry Potter? _The_ Harry Potter?"

"Yes, but you can call me The. Or Potter."

The Weasley interrupted. "Can you believe it, Harry? I found a toad in the bog." The Weasley held up the toad.

"Well, where else would you find a toad?" said the Potter.

Trevor, for it was he, said _bwork_.

"Trevor! Is that you?" This was a new voice, accompanied shortly by a body. It was that of a black-haired boy, who had of late been weeping. The Potter felt a twinge of recognition — which didn't make sense, it would have to be _deja vu_. Could you actually have _deja vu_ with amnesia? and if so, why? All the more to investigate in this most intriguing world.

"Neville, I presume?" said the Potter. "Well, this _is_ becoming a party! Have a seat, you two, and shut the door, I want to see if this toad is capable of dimension-hopping.

"Would anyone care for a jelly bean?"

The Weasley looked a bit sick when he said that, but Neville took one.

#

The Hogwarts Express chugged into late afternoon.

"—and of course I tried a few spells straight off as soon as I got my wand, and they all worked," said Hermione. "It was ever so exciting. And then I got busted by the enforcement people for violating the Underage Magic Act, which of course we'd never even _heard_ of—"

"_Wicked!_" said the Weasley, much impressed. "Did you get banged up in chokey?"

"What? No! Muggleborn, special circumstances."

"Too bad, you'd get mad respect that way..."

The Potter said, "Ah, you _are_ what they call a muggleborn, aren't you? Got a question for you, Hermione Granger." He picked a cardboard rectangle up off the seat and showed it to her. "Chocolate Frog cards_._ Interactive animated images on cardboard. Trivial collectibles for children! Clearly cheap noise-level magic. And yet the fun facts on the back—" _Albus Dumbledore, etcetera wibble thing Nicolas Flamel_ — "don't scroll."

"Yes? What was the question?"

"As a muggleborn, when you first saw the incoherency of the wizarding world...did your brain want to crawl out of your head at all?"

She was nonplussed.

"It was all so exciting I didn't think about it, really, but I expect it'll make sense eventually," she said.

"It's all just normal to me," said Ron, looking away from the mirror. He'd been peeking at it from time to time with an expression that said, I may be going to school with someone else's robes and someone else's wand, but at least I've got a new _look_.

"Me too," said Neville.

_Ah yes: Neville._ Maybe the universe didn't make any sense yet, but you knew where you stood with Neville. He was a boy with a frequently missing toad.

The Potter got up, gave the owl what he was pretty sure was a mouse-flavoured jelly bean — an assessment with which the owl seemed to agree — opened up his trunk and hauled out his coursebooks.

"So — Neville," said the Potter, scrunching himself into the corner between his pile of books and the window. "This evanescent toad of yours." He crossed his legs by way of a bookstand, pulled _One Thousand Magical Herbs And Fungi_ off the top of the pile, licked his thumb, and began to turn the pages in a quiet, casual but ruthlessly sequential manner. "How did you come by him?"

The Hogwarts Express churned onward into twilight.

#

"—a really distracting meringue," said Neville Longbottom at the end of his distressing history.

The Potter peered at him over the top of his book. "So first Great-Uncle Algie tried to _drown_ you, then he _threw you out a window_—"

"In fairness, I _did_ bounce..."

"—all in an attempt to squeeze some magic out of you. And then he gave you a toad when you finally displayed your ability by not actually dying when he killed you.

"A gift toad from an uncle like that — are you losing it, or unconsciously trying to get rid of it? The latter seems, you know, like an emotionally plausible decision. Unless you'd rather forever be known as the boy who towed his loss. —Lost his toad." The Potter closed the back cover of _Herbs And Fungi_ and moved on to _Magical Draughts And Potions_. "Incidentally, were you and your uncle ever in front of an arriving train at the same time? More specifically, with his hand behind your back...?"

Neville frowned down at the damp and floppy creature still safe on his lap. He frowned for quite a long time.

"There's a lake at Hogwarts, isn't there?" he said.

"The Black Lake," said Hermione. "We'll cross it on our way into the castle."

"Good!" said Neville. "Get ready to meet your natural habitat, Trevor."

_Bwork_, said Trevor.

The Weasley got up and fetched a small cage from the luggage rack over his seat. "You should get a rat," he said. "They're a lot less trouble. Look at Scabbers — he's nearly comatose, you just keep him in a drawer and throw food in once a day."

"Why would I want to do that?" said Neville, examining the apparently dead grey rat lying on its back in the cage.

The Weasley shrugged. "Dunno. Never thought about it, really..." He tilted the cage from side to side and the rat slid freely across the bottom.

"I don't think rats are allowed at Hogwarts, actually," said Hermione. "My letter from the school said you could bring a cat OR a toad OR an owl."

"Oh, yeah?" said the Weasley. "—Rats can swim, can't they?"

"Guess we could find out, if it's not too dark," said Neville.

"You two are shameful!"

"Well then, do _you_ want a rat?"

"Um...no, not a dead one."

"He's probably just resting," said the Weasley, squinting through the cage bars. "Shagged out after a long squeak."

"Well," Hermione began reluctantly — but her reluctant-decision-making process was interrupted by the sudden announcement from hidden speakers, or invisible ones, that the train was five minutes from the station.

"_Your baggage will be sent on; you need not bring it with you,_" it concluded, and silence fell.

"Well, I'll hang onto him for a while," said the Weasley, stowing his rat. "Cage is baggage anyway, so I won't have to lug him about."

Neville looked at Trevor, clearly wavering, probably because he didn't want to just throw an animal away.

"I'll take care of the toad if you like," said the Potter.

"Oh, would you?" said Neville. "That would be brilliant."

He handed the saggy thing over, and the Potter got up and added it to the owl's cage. "You have a new lodger," he said, looking the owl in the eye. "You're not hungry."

The owl cocked its head and gave hem a reproachful look that said _Do I look like a toad-nibbler?_

"No, of course you don't look like a toad-nibbler," he told the owl. "Sorry I can't take you along. It always does to know where your owl is."

The Hogwarts Express gave an enormous hiss, as steam trains so often do when they stop.

They had arrived.


	2. It Takes All Sorts

_Dock \Dock\ (d[o^]k), n. [AS. docce; of uncertain origin; cf. G. docken-bl[aum]tter, Gael. dogha burdock, OF. doque; perh. akin to L. daucus, daucum, Gr. ?, ?, a kind of parsnip or carrot, used in medicine. Cf. {Burdock}.] (Bot.)_  
_A genus of plants ({Rumex}), some species of which are well-known weeds which have a long taproot and are difficult of extermination._  
—1913 Webster.

**#  
**

**It Takes All Sorts.**

Out of the nice warm brightly lit train the Potter stepped, and into the cold damp almost cavelike darkness of the station. There was an information board posted on a pillar; next stop was Hogsmeade.

15° centigrade and falling, light rain, wind (lick finger) southwest at 29 km/h, humidity (dry hand on robes, wave about) 88% give or take, conclusion: _I am fffreezing in this tiny little body. _He bounced up and down, shuddering in the cold and dark, and discovered that bouncing up and down was fun even if it didn't seem to warm him up at all.

Inventory! Weasley, check, Granger, check, Longbottom — where is Longbottom? Longbottom is hanging back, stop that.

He reached out and tugged the Longbottom's sleeve. Puzzled look from the Longbottom, _don't-wander-off_ look from the Potter, _Oh!_ look from the Longbottom: right, that's sorted, now what?

And then out of the darkness came a lamp.

"_Firs' years over here! That you over there, Harry? Firs' years follow me!_"

The Potter looked up at the lamp, and then further up (someone gave a low whistle) at the utterly spectacular person it illuminated.

Nine foot thirteen he stood, _need hedge clippers to groom that beard,_ what could he _be_, magic _and_ a new species of human (_Homo Immensus?_) and not even dinnertime yet! —And no, definitely not Harry over here, not even an amnesic could forget meeting someone like you, you are a person who should be at the centre of the earth terrifying German geologists. Except of course there are no German geologists at the centre of the earth, they'd have the sense to keep out of it, they'd be incinerated, and besides it's too hot. What am I thinking? Am I thinking?

_I'm thinking I'm a first year,_he decided. _And I'd better wave at the nice giant, else he'll wonder where Harry am. Is._ He did this — a certain number of people turned around to look — and then joined the group filtering itself from the crowd to follow the nice giant.

Down from the station they went, onto a narrow. dark, steep and twisting path that the nice giant had no trouble with despite his size, _I wonder if Hannibal ever considered crossing elephants with goats?_

"Hogwarts castle roun' the next bend!" called the giant.

Jon Anderson would have understood what happened next, and Alan Hovhaness would have wished he could have been there, because _mysterious_ _mountain_. Out of nowhere, just _looming_ there, and it took a lot of mountain to loom at that distance, there was a whole great black lake in between it and them...

The rain didn't dare get in its way, that was the kind of mountain it was, and so it just shone clear bright silver under the full moon.

And yes, there, built into its side, above the white cliff face at the far side of the lake, positively erupting with towers both crenellated and conical:

_Castle Duckula!_

Several people said "_What?_"

Okay, didn't mean to say that out loud, but still, a couple of them had even _got_ it — and was one of them, _yes_, yes that _was_ the Malfoy wasn't it? _People are like Bertie Bott beans, you never know what you're going to get..._

And what have we here?

"No more than four to a boat!" said the giant, waving his umbrella at the little fleet that was waiting for them on the near shore of the lake.

_I've always enjoyed messing about in boats,_ thought the Potter, and picked one with apotropaic eyes painted on the prow. All three of his cabin companions piled in after him, and he noticed that the earlier coldness had gone with the rain.

"FORWARD!" said the giant, and the flotilla moved as though he had just fired Helen of Troy out of a (suitably large) starter pistol.

They weren't even self-rowing rowboats, they just _moved_. Steam trains, but self-motivated boats — _ferryman straight out of a job_ — just as well, my money's in my trunk. _Or on it_. And what are you on about now? _No, no, don't listen to me, I'm just your internal monologue, pay me no mind._ Fine, _be_ that way.

Silently they crossed the mirrorblackness of the water, under white stars so sharp they didn't even hurt — and upon looking up into the sky the Potter suddenly realized that some significant, very important fact had been and gone, passed by unrecognized, leaving only an ambiguously shaped dotted outline behind. He'd missed something. Notice everything, because trying to remember something with nothing to go on but the shape of its absence is like searching through a suit made entirely of pockets for a jujube when you've forgotten the definition of jujube and also have a great deal of extremely interesting lint.

Straight up to the sheer cliff face they went, and then into it through a whispering veil of ivy. Behind the curtain was a tunnel, cloud-lit with blue and green phosphorescent fungi, that led at length to a harbor where the boats grounded on a pebble-strewn shore with a lawn beyond it. Rising from the lawn were great stone steps; at the top of those stood the castle's door, surrounded, of course, by castle.

The Potter leaped out of the boat and bounded up onto the lawn. _Look at this lawn. How do you get a lawn like this? You roll it and seed it for three hundred years_ — bend down, pick grass, suck on blade — _and then another six hundred just to be sure._

The giant climbed the great stone steps, a bit awkwardly because they weren't great enough for legs like his, raised his hand and brought his mighty knuckles down upon the oaken door. He knocked with _echoes_.

_D'toom. D'toom. D'toom. D'toom._

There was a _clock-clock-clock_ of approaching footsteps on polished stone, and then the door opened with a thoroughly satisfying creak, revealing the castle's inner sanctum, or at least its foyer, and a tall, imposing woman who could wear a pointy black hat and make it look good.

"Firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said the giant, providing the who of the witch.

"Thank you, Hagrid, I shall take them from here," replied the McGonagall, and stepped very aside to let the giant pass before she confronted the student bodies, size small, before her. She scanned them, looking for something that she didn't quite find, before she finally noticed the Potter. She almost raised an eyebrow. "Follow me," she said, and led them into the epic foyer and thence to a near-afterthought of an anteroom for a microassembly.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," she began — and while she was telling everyone else what the Potter had learned from the school prefects earlier, he scanned the room. No, it did _not_ have a couple of extra doors in with a helpful graphic on each. Seven hours on a train, a brisk jog down a difficult path, I think we've all got glowing moss in our hair — where are the washrooms?

"—the Sorting Ceremony will begin momentarily; I suggest you smarten yourselves up as much as possible before I return for you," the professor concluded, and then swept off into the hallway.

Smarten ourselves up how? With what? Tongues?

"If anyone needs a moist towelette I have extra," announced the Granger, producing an almost sashlike chain of wet-wipe packets. _Now why don't I have that kind of mind?_ thought the Potter. The wizard-born didn't seem to grasp the principle, but the rest of them queued up immediately.

The Potter passed the Weasley a torn-open packet. "You've got frog on your nose," he said.

"How does this work?" said the Weasley, pulling out a small alcohol-soaked pad, but the Potter didn't reply, because _ghosts_.

_Lots_ of ghosts, lots of incontestable translucent white ectoplasmic effulgences, streaming in through the walls that lacked washroom doors, oh, they were _beautiful_, he'd have to take out a subscription to the _Skeptical Inquirer_ now just so he could cancel it with an irate note.

"Oh, it unfolds," said the Weasley. Other people had other things to say, but the ghosts didn't pay much attention.

"My dear friar," one of them was saying — quite audibly, too, despite his less than vaporous vocal cords — this was a ghost speaking, not a startled student — "ours is a _ghost_ council; why should we even bring up the subject of Peeves? He's an embarrassment to all spiritkind. —What's all this?"

He'd finally noticed the room was occupied, and peered down at them fustily.

"Unsorted first-years, Sir Nicholas," said a rather round ghost in a monk's robe. He smiled down at them all. "I do hope you'll be joining us in Hufflepuff! It is a most _happening_ House!"

_Oh, oh, oh, look at you,_ thought the Potter. _No, look and listen. Look at those clothes! Look at the_ weave! _That's what, eleventh century? That's old-school — Chaucer isn't even in it yet and you're speaking modern idiomatic English! Well, almost!_ He wanted to interview each and every one of them.

"Come along!" interrupted a returning McGonagall. "It's time for the ceremony to begin. Queue, please!"

_This school has no sense of priorities._

#

The McGonagall led them across the hall and into what the Potter had learned was the Great Hall; he wondered momentarily whether all the faculty slept in the bower, but that was probably going a bit far with tradition.

Four tables of students, one table of staff - and now one chair on its own with a hat on it - and good grief the candles, the _candles_, thousands of them, floating in midair, this place just keeps getting better, that makes no sense at all, the energy required to hold them up against gravity probably exceeded the light they gave off. _Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly._ You again? Oh, look, the ceiling's missing_._

"The ceiling's bewitched to look like the sky overhead," said the Granger, who had noticed his abstraction. "I read about it in _Hogwarts: A History_."

"Oh?" said the Potter. A perfect replica of the other side. "Did it say why they didn't just make it transparent?"

"Um...no."

"I don't see any trolls," said the Weasley, apropos of seemingly nothing. "That's good."

_No it isn't!_ thought the Potter indignantly. _If they've got trolls they should bring them out right now!_

"Harry, you're _drooling_," whispered the Granger, handing him a tissue.

"Am I? Well, where would we be without saliva..."

Professor McGonagall was now before them, unwinding a wooden-handled scroll. "I will call your names in alphabetical order," she said. "When it is your turn, you will place the hat upon your _head_ and sit upon the _stool_." Careful phrasing, that; the hat _did_ seem to have been sat upon repeatedly.

A rather fixed expression appeared on the McGonagall's face.

"However," she said, turning to the hat, "first things first." All the people at the tables had focused their attention on the hat.

The McGonagall inclined her head gravely, and the hat unexpectedly rotated to face the first years, cleared the throat it even more unexpectedly had, and began, quite astonishingly, to sing just like Ronan Tynan:

#

_Slytherin and Hufflepuff  
Gryff-in-dor Ra-ven-claw  
Though you're stern or sorry stuff  
This hat will sort you all._

_Once you have sat beneath me_  
_I'll riffle through your mind_  
_And though you try to hide it_  
_The truth is what I'll find._

_I can't think why I bother_  
_It makes no sense to me_  
_You're all so very diff'rent_  
_And four's just one plus three_

_We really need more Houses_  
_There simply aren't enough_  
_The school's enough for pride in;_  
_Now here's a message tough-_

_Each Gryffindor who leaps in_  
_Each Slytherin who plots_  
_Each Hufflepuff who labours_  
_Each Ravenclaw who jots:_

_You'll one day meet a teacher_  
_Who simply hates your guts_  
_No matter what your House is_  
_No ifs or ands or buts._

_No, courage will not save you_  
_Nor work nor brains nor sleaze_  
_You might as well just skive off_  
_And take up keeping bees_.

(All together now—)

_Slytherin and Hufflepuff  
Gryff-in-dor Ra-ven-claw  
Though you're stern or sorry stuff  
This hat will sort you all._

_Aaaaaaaa...laaaaaaaaas._

#

"I'd quite like a hat like that," said the Potter.

"Right, let's get on with it_,_" said the hat, in an entirely different voice, one that seemed to have greater acquaintance with cigars than would be healthy for a hat.

"Abbott, Hannah," said Professor McGonagall.

Abbott Hannah skittered to the stool, dropped the hat over most of her head, and was declared "HUFFLEPUFF!" before she even sat down.

_Good girl, Hannah,_ thought the Potter as the Hufflepuff table greeted her with enthusiasm.

He started itemizing the results.

_Hufflepuff__: _Abbott, Hannah; Bones, Susan; Finch-Fletchley, Justin; Jones, Megan. _Ravenclaw_: Boot, Terry; Brocklehurst, Mandy; Goldstein, Anthony; MacDougal, Morag. _Gryffindor_: Brown, Lavender; Finnigan, Seamus; Granger, Hermione (not Ravenclaw? interesting); Longbottom, Neville (not Hufflepuff? even more interesting). _Slytherin_: Bulstrode, Millicent (she seemed oddly familiar); Crabbe, Vincent; Goyle, Gregory; Greengrass, Daphne; Malfoy, Draco (not a surprise, but...); Nott, Theodore—

_Stop. Stop. Wait. _He'd _missed_ one.

How could he have missed one? He _couldn't_ have missed one! But he had! Right before Nott! Who was it? There was only an echo of an answer, barely more than a dotted outline.

_(...Moon...)_

Could he be more specific? _Who_ Moon? _Where_ Moon? Boy? Girl? He scanned the tables, looking for any possible Moonlike substance, and saw no clue. Where did the Moon go?

"Parkinson, Pansy," said McGonagall.

_She_ went to Slytherin. Patil, Padma went to Ravenclaw; Patil, Parvati went to Gryffindor (not entirely identical twin, then, interesting); Perks, Sally-Anne went to Hufflepuff. The Moon was gone. Another thing to worry about.

"Potter, Harry!"

Amid a sudden hush, dotted with identifications and speculations, the Potter walked over to the stool and picked up the hat. _I wonder if this hat has an anti-lice spell,_ he thought, and then tried to erase the thought from his mind on the grounds that it was terribly rude.

He sat on the warm wooden seat and donned the hat.

There was darkness, and a small buzzing voice in his ear—

_#_

"_One at a time_, please," said the Sorting Hat, wearily.

_There's only one head under here, honest._

"_Feels_ like two."

_Definitely only one head. I could try to _grow_ another one...it does take a while..._

"No thank you! —Well, we do what we must."

The Hat paused, and the Potter developed the feeling that it was pacing around him, giving him dissatisfied looks.

_Could I just ask a question? Where did you put Moon?_

"What?"

_You sorted Moon. Somebody Moon. Five students ago, between two Slytherins._

"I do character, not appellation. I don't even know _your_ name."

_Professor McGonagall just said it!_

"Who listens?"_  
_

_Bother!_

"And speaking of character: too much of a scatterbrained butterfly-chaser for Hufflepuff."

_Ouch...!_

"Clever enough for Ravenclaw — but a conclusion-jumper, and slapdash. They've lost enough towers to that sort of thing already."

_Tch._

"Vain enough for Gryffindor—"

NO.  
_Not_ vain.  
_Never_ vain.  
Sooner _dead_ than vain.

"...How about boastful, conceited, self-congratulatory, overconfident and smug?"

_Oh. Well. Yeah. Practically perfect in every way!_

"Hmm...a_nd_ brave, can't deny that, very face-to-the-foe, battle all villains Gryffindor...but with a manipulative streak _that_ wide? And so needlessly enigmatic? Slytherin cries out for you."

_How's their chess club?_

"Finest in the school."

_Ooh._

"And you still feel like two people. Hm. Any personal preference?"

_I want to be a Hufflepuff._

"They'd stuff you through a window."

_Don't you mean throw me out a window?_

"They're in the basement, I know what I mean. Do the terms _hard work_ and _patience_ seem to have any personal relevance to you?"

_Well! Broadly speaking...um..._

"How many jigsaw puzzles have you ever finished that you didn't make yourself? Forget Hufflepuff. _Second_ choice?"

_Ravenclaw...?_

"Are you familiar with the terms _explosions_, _flames_, and _burning things?_"

_Intimately!_

"So are they. Forget Ravenclaw! _Tertiary_ choice?"

_Minus Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, I think I'm of two minds on the subject._

The Hat grumbled like a distant oncoming storm. "Very well then — the best of both worlds is to _have_ both worlds —"

#

"GRYFFINDOR _HYPHEN _SLYTHERIN!"

...it had a nice ring to it, like Gilbert & Sullivan.

The Potter took the hat off and got up and wondered if he'd gone deaf from the shout, because silence had fallen.

Everyone was staring at him even more intensely than they had been.

Except for the ones looking at the High Table, where a beak-nosed teacher had apparently just knocked a goblet of wine into the lap of a teacher wearing a purple turban. (Turban? What rubbish. Turbans aren't hats, they're lazy mummies.) And the ones watching Professor McGonagall, who had just dropped the Sorting Scroll, which was even now unrolling toward the far wall.

The Headmaster, now — _he_ looked perfectly happy, and just like his Chocolate Frog card, and proceeded to break the aforementioned silence with a clap and a cheerful "Splendid!"

"?" said Professor McGonagall. "_!_"

"The decision of the Sorting Hat is of course final," declared the Headmaster, rubbing his hands together. "Mr Potter shall have free access to the facilities of both houses as he desires, and any points he may earn or lose shall be divided equally between them. —Next!"

The McGonagall started across the room to retrieve the Sorting Scroll, the tail end of which had finally reached the wall, and got about halfway before she stopped to shake her head and draw her wand. "_Accio scroll!_" she said.

The scroll flew into her hand. That was a good one, must learn that...

The Potter returned the Hat to its chair.

"Ooh," he said, looking back and forth between the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables. "Do I get two dinners?

"No? Ah." He started waving his finger back and forth. "Yan, tan, tethera, methera — oh, bother it," he said, and — after mouthing _I TRIED_ at the Hufflepuffs, who were very understanding — went to sit with the Granger and the Longbottom and, come to notice it, opposite the ghost who had been talking about Peeves, whoever Peeves was.

"Gryffindor _and_ Slytherin!" said Percy Weasley. "Well, it beats the reverse, I suppose."

"Why didn't _we_ get a hyphen?" said a much aggrieved Fred Weasley.

"The plotting we could have done with those resources!" said George.

"We should appeal," said Fred.

"And risk breaking up the set?" said a tarantula-fondler further down the table.

"Bite your tongue, Lee Jordan!" the Weasleys flanged.

"You're quite the oddment, aren't you, young man?" said the ghost, who leaned in for a closer look at him only to have his head fall off, dangling loosely from a flap of ectoplasmic skin, leaving the Potter with a highly instructive view of the interior of a ghostly esophagus. "_Blast!_ I wore the wrong ruff! Must go change...what a terrible _faux pas_...profuse apologies..." It fled through the wall.

"That was Nearly Headless Nick," said Fred.

"He tends to do that," said George.

The Potter noticed that the Granger and the Longbottom were giving him funny looks. "What?" he said, rather wounded. "If Churchill were a wizard _he'd_ have gotten the same result! And Disraeli! Well, no, he'd probably have been in Ravenclaw besides..."

"Hmm," said the Granger.

The Sorting continued as soon as Professor McGonagall had finished rewinding her scroll, and the Gryffindor table was shortly joined by Thomas comma Dean. Turpin comma Lisa went to Ravenclaw...

...and then three ginger Weasleys stared as one newly black-haired Weasley walked over to the sorting stool.

"Oh my," said Percy. "I didn't even recognize him."

"So that's where Harry got the hair," said Fred. "Was going to ask about that."

"You think Mum'll kill him more than once?" said George.

"_GRYFFINDOR!_" said the Hat.

"No," said Percy, and led vigorous applause.

The Weasley came over and sat down, radiating defiance.

"Well?" he said.

"Splendid job, Ronald," said Percy. "Glad to have you join us. —You look good!"

"Yeah," said the Weasley. "I do."

"Have I missed something?" said the Granger.

_We all come in in the middle,_ thought the Potter. While the Weasley explained the hair thing, Zabini comma Blaise went to Slytherin, and Professor McGonagall took the Hat and stool away.

"That's fascinating," said the Granger, pulling at her long frizzy brown hair and looking at it. "I wonder how _I'd_ look in red..."

"You're fine the way you are," said the Potter, touching her arm. She smiled at that, but when she did, she tried to hide her teeth. Well, we'll work on that...buck teeth are cool...

There was a tinking of glasses from the High Table, and the Headmaster rose to address the gathering.

"Hello, Hogwarts!" said Professor Dumbledore. "Now that we are well and truly sorted, minus certain turncoat exceptions at the Gryffindor table who know who they are, I would like to say a few words preliminary to the feast.

"Wolf! River! Baby! _Turnip!_

"Thank you!"

There was considerable applause, during which the Headmaster was handed a bit of paper by a somewhat dodgy-looking man in clothes that suggested Janitorial Staff; he donned a pair of gold half-moon spectacles to read it.

"Also!" he said. "To the owner of a red, yellow and green 1894 Dunton vardo: your lanterns are burning! Thank you for your kind attention. —You may now stuff yourselves!"

Professor Dumbledore sat down as a small professor at the end of the High Table got up and slipped out of the room, and also just as staggering quantities of tucker appeared _ex nihilo_ upon all the tables.

"Potatoes, Harry?" said Percy.

He was absolutely correct.

#

The dinner was prolonged and noisy and educational, at least in certain areas. Gryffindor people liked to talk about sports (or at least one sport), the attempted break-in at Gringott's, if, why and when Professor Snape's head would explode, whether and how he would kill Professor Quirrel, and various forms of politics, but not much about magic, although the Granger did her bit.

The Potter gave his attention to the turkey and potatoes while filing the names and identities of everyone at the high table except the innominate fellow who owned the vardo, and even he was definitely the new Muggle Studies teacher — replacing Quirrel, who was taking a new role as Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher against the objections of Professor Snape, hence the taking of odds and placing of small bets.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see at the table behind him a Slytherin ghost covered in silver bloodstains watching the Malfoy not eat. Something was wrong again...perhaps he shouldn't have had the beans, no, that wasn't it. It was something meaningful.

He looked at the table. They were down to the dessert now. Apples and pears. Bananas. _Shouldn't there be strawberry ice cream...?_ Oh, wait, there it is, could have sworn it wasn't there before. Was it supposed to have those little silver things on it? _Why do I feel so_ thick? Too much to eat? Well, it was a skinny body, not used to such things. And yet, and yet..._never eat the food in fairyland..._or was it just the turkey?

Younger students were beginning to fall asleep into their mostly-empty plates, a prospect that seemed increasingly attractive, when (_tink tink tink_) Professor Dumbledore rose again.

"Some final announcements before we retire!" he, well, announced.

"Mr Filch the caretaker wishes me to remind you that magic is not to be used in the hallways, or for that matter upon them, and that using magic on the staircases is how we _got_ so many of the dratted things."

Apples and pears...you climb so high, you fall so low...

"Second, quidditch trials begin 9th September; interested parties please contact Madam Hooch.

"Third, access to the right hand side of the third-floor corridor — that's second-floor to you exchange students from America...unless it's fourth, well, keep on your toes — is restricted to persons wishing to die a horrible death. Interested parties please contact Madam Pomfrey.

"Third and a half, the Forbidden Forest is still forbidden under much the same terms.

"Fourth and finally, will you all please be upstanding for the singing of the school song?"

The Potter wobbled to his feet along with everyone else and blinked in the direction of the High Table. Half the synapses in his borrowed head were blinking with yellow warning lights and the rest were thinking about it. The Headmaster waved his wand, and projected words in traceries of fire.

"In the key of _alohomora_ — follow the bouncing quaffle!"

#

_Hogwarts, Hogwarts, teach us the questions, do  
And some answers, probably need them too  
We'll balance your educating  
With ludicrous recreating  
Then we'll beat feet when we've our sheet  
From the diploma mill called you._

_#  
_

That didn't sound _at all_ right. But he was too tired to care. Tired was interesting...

The Headmaster wiped tears from his eyes. "Ah, there's nothing like a good singalong, and that was nothing like a good singalong. We'll be here all year. Thank you and good night!"

Percival the Perfect Prefect led them all from the Great Hall and up the grand marble staircase. Further in and further up they went, making their winding way through hidden doorways, lots and lots of those, through halls of mirrors and portraits — the portraits talked, the mirrors didn't; maybe you had to ask them a question first — up and up and into a corridor where they stopped on the grounds that a bundle of canes hanging in the air ahead was blocking the way.

"Here we go again," said Percy, mostly to himself. "Blasted poltergeist. Don't do it, Peeves, or I'll go straight to the Bloody Baron!"

The bundle of canes proceeded to go to pieces and pelt the crowd with itself, revealing in the process that it was not in fact a mere bundle of canes but a translucent little imp behind a bundle of canes. _If that's Peeves, where's Wooster?_ thought the Potter, absently catching the cane that would have hit the Longbottom. Oh, right, West Midlands...and why call it a polter_geist_ when it's not a ghost? He leaned on the cane and was glad to have it because the legs weren't working properly any more.

"Right!" said Percy. "About face, everyone! We're off to see the Baron, I'm sure he'll be absolutely _delighted_ to have the Slytherin dungeon filled with Gryffindor first-years who want to use the washroom!"

Peeves blanched, to the extent that it was possible, and blew everyone a raspberry before disappearing through the floor.

"It worked? Thank goodness. Come on, we're almost there..."

At the end of the corridor was a larger-than-life portrait of a larger-than-life lady. "Password?" she asked.

"Ouroboros," said Percy.

"_Entrez-vous!_" said the fat lady, and the portrait swung out of the wall, revealing a round hole behind it, which they all climbed through.

"This is the common room," yawned Percy, and the Potter followed suit. "Notice board over there, for announcements, class schedules, that sort of thing, always read that in the morning. First years follow me, the rest of you know where you're going."

The Potter _et al._ followed Percy up still another flight of stairs and into another, smaller, room full of beds. Beds, that was good, like a nice bed, _higher brain functions shorting out,_ arrgh. Oh, look, they even brought up the empty candy box. Where is trunk with Harry James Potter written on it, there, next to owl cage _with no owl in it_. Just Trevor the Toad, r_ight, my fault, I neglected to tell the _toad _not to eat the _owl_, oh dear, sorry Harry, not even a feather left...unless Trevor just taught him escape tricks...bad influence, that toad..._

Percy Weasley, who had noticed his puzzled look, said "If you had an owl, it's been taken to the owlery. It'll stop by the Great Hall in the morning to see if you have any mail to send."

"Oh, that's good," said the Potter. "Excuse me a moment, I have to lose consciousness, be right back."

And with that he collapsed face down on the bed.

He was vaguely aware of Percy dousing candles, turning dim to dark to black, and then the black became nothing all on its own.

At the very last moment, on the knife-edge of the void, a thought went through his mind, and it was a thought not of his own making.

It was the thought of a very indignant eleven year old boy, and it was this:

_**Who are you and what are you doing in my head?!**_


	3. Interlude: Things That Go Ouch

_Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night._  
— Philip K. Dick.

#

**Interlude: Things That Go Ouch.**

_I've been _sleeping!_ for hours and hours!_

Sleeping was nice, like a cup of tea and a chat. Minus the tea, of course. And the chat. Or then again maybe not minus the chat, because before he'd fallen asleep the last thing he'd heard was a rather accusing voice asking a question he couldn't answer, and now...now there was something in his mind that hadn't been there previously.

_Memories._

A little gift box of memories, like a chocolate assortment.

What have we got here?

_I don't have a mum and dad. Just an aunt. And an uncle. And a cousin._

And they're all rubbish? Oh, that's shameful. Something ought to be done about that.

_Her name is Hedwig._

That would be the owl. Aaaand...a great big delicious chunk of Diagon Alley: the wand chooses the wizard, does it?...and here's a squashed birthday cake...and

**You're a wizard, Harry.**

...

Okay, that one was _sharp._ Or maybe pointed was the word.

Indices of guilt and shame rising...

_If you can hear me, I _will _figure this out, and I _will _make it up to you._

Come to think of it, he could start doing that right now.

He was lying in fragile comfort in a nice warm bed (_with a roof!_) in a room lit in near-invisibly-deep blues and reds, in which the snores of Neville Longbottom echoed like the growls of distant lions.

Trunk, where is it? Under bed. Leave bed, _fragile comfort shattered for reasons to be identified later_, pull out trunk in sync with snores of Longbottom so as not to wake anyone. Open trunk, feel around, probably under brass scales as they are noisiest thing available, yes, here is wand; sit on bed _very carefully_.

Having read all the coursebooks on the train, this _should_ be easy...

Hold wand, so. Draw path in air.

"Lumos," he said under his breath.

_And lo! there was..._continued darkness.

Hold wand tip up to eyeball, not a glimmer. Right word, right motion, what's missing?

The _wizard_, of course. This is a host-guest issue. It's the host who does the business (_and indeed needs to do some business, so think faster_). Mind has knowledge, body does not, simply moving body around does nothing useful. _Teach_ the body.

Tap head with wand._ You in there, Harry? Pay attention, now. Wand does this — _he traced through the pattern in slow motion, like a particularly graceful assembly-line robot — a_nd you say _Lumos.

_Got that?_

Here we go...

Wand-drawn path in air: "Lumos."

Aaaand...again, nothing, not a faintly glowing sausage.

Okay, open to suggestions. Anybody? Wake up, right brain!

Are you there, internal monologue? I take back what I said!

Whatever it was I said...

_Physics isn't the most important thing. Love is. Feynman._

Oh.

Well, of course.

Hold wand, so; wand-drawn path in air—

_**You're a wizard, Harry.**_

_"Lumos."_

The sun came out.

_Holy Zarquon's singing fish_, whole room lit up like noon, panic panic panic, stuff wand under pillow, _Gryffindor Tower In Flames, Sorting Hat Proven Correct_, pull out again, look for off switch, more panic, stick bright end in mouth, _are you insane?_ okay, tongue not vaporising, panic off, light not hot _but can see inside of nose_ (mmm, wand tastes like holly wood, they could use this for those sweeping spotlights), _mem: blow nose_, how to turn it _off?! _Nox, yes?

_"Nox."_

Darkness fell, echoing purple.

_If that was _lumos _I'd hate to see _lumos maxima_, and if I did it wouldn't be for _long — no, no, rewind, check somatic experience log. Brightness was a side effect, byproduct of—?

Byproduct of utter joy.

_The freed bird sings the wildest._

Said feeling _would_ also tend to explain the tears running down someone's cheeks...

_Well, good time to blow that nose, then._

#

Okay. Wand under covers, once more _without_ feeling please?

_"Lumos."_

Oh, much better. _Can you wax and wane? Yes? Cool. Focus? Very good._

He leaned out of the bed and played the tightly-focused light into the darkess underneath.

No, ahem, _container_ under the bed. Good thing or bad? May suggest indoor plumbing, although who knows, medieval castle, more than one reason for narrow windows, one being to keep you from falling out...

Okay, going to have to go look.

Slip out of bed, tip-toe to stairs. Down down down to common room, wave wand about, lots of wall, no doors with meaningful icons of people with dots for heads, okay, keep going to exit.

#

"What are you doing out of bed?" said the Fat Lady sleepily. "Against the rules, being out of the dormitory."

_Pictures that _sleep_, why do I always have to be on my way somewhere?_

"Looking for a washroom," he said. "If there's one inside I didn't see it, is there one, do you know?"

"I've never been privy to such information," said the Fat Lady primly. A nostalgic look crossed her face. "Though I do remember little Albus Dumbledore asking me much the same question, many many years ago, so I doubt there is."

"Do you remember which way he went?"

"We're at the end of a hallway, young man. Options are a bit limited when you reach the end."

"" said the Potter, rotating away from the portrait carefully. "—When does the password change, by the way?" he added over his shoulder.

"Seven."

"Thank you."

Delicately and on tiptoe he went, waving the light from side to side, seeing nothing in the way of doors but the obviously wrong kind. Mirrors, yes, lots of mirrors, portraits, suits of armour whose empty heads rotated to watch him go by, the odd gargoyle, glints of yellow-green light at floor level just ahead—

"Oh, hello," he said to the cat.

A small scrawny dust-coloured model, silently sitting, watching him with a rather vinegary expression — still, no trouble, cats, cats weren't easy but they were simple, generally you just had to remember that your sole purpose in existing was to provide service to cats.

"Have you seen a washroom about?"

=(Slight narrowing of eyes, cynical amusement, _stupid boys ought not to be allowed, ought to run you in for being out of dormitory..._)=

"Or, failing that, a mop? Like a nice mop, me — no pride no shame, eh?"

=(Rear back: _Absolutely not to be allowed!_)=

The cat disappeared into the darkness.

Okay, no luck there, keep going...no, too far, double back, maybe try the sixth floor, _that's ridiculous, it's a dormitory floor, they've got to have a whole bathroom complex somewhere, _wait_,_ what was that? sort of a King's cross barrier _not_-ness back there, double back again...

_How could I have missed that?_

Nice big door, labeled WASHROOMS.

He pushed it open and walked in. It contained exactly the sort of thing a reasonable person would expect: a little fluorescent-lit tiled foyer — strange, that, given the candles everywhere else — with sign ahead saying _Please Leave This Area As You Would Wish To Find It,_ doors to the left and right with helpful icons on — well, no, not all that helpful really, little witch and little wizard, but which is witch and which is not? same cone-hat, same dot-head, same school robéd body, how are you supposed to _tell_, oh, wait, right-hand one's got shoes on, left-hand one doesn't, what's that supposed to mean? _well, who's more likely to walk into a public lavatory barefoot?_ obvious, really...the slugs and snails set...

He turned left and faced the door.

There's a phrase for embarking on this sort of venture, what is it, oh yes—

He stepped into the unknown.

_"Allons-y!"_

#

And that was much better.

After washing what were presently his hands, he looked at himself in the mirror, adjusted his tie, wished for a comb, found one on the sink, used it.

_More_ than better.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the handsomest one of all?"

"_Gilderoy Lockhart_," said the mirror.

"Oh, who asked you," said the Potter, and stalked out.

#

In the little foyer he stopped to lean against the tiléd wall and tighten his shoelaces (yes, still in a world of magic), and it was then, after the reverberation of the closing inner door had faded, that he heard it.

At the edge of audibility, what is it? An intermittent, regular...something, a bit like the sound an alarm makes in between the whoops...very faint...

Stop. Listen. Concentrate.

Hold breath.

...

Bother. Whatever it was it was gone now.

He dropped his foot to the floor, and stepped out into into the hall.

And promptly ran into a monster.

#

"Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch," said the Potter.

"_Out of the dormitory in the middle of the night!_" said the monster, and continued to drag him down the stairs by his ear.

"It's nearly six," said the Potter.

"_An example must be made!_"

"I was only looking for a lavatory," said the Potter conversationally. "Ouch, ouch, ouch."

Something burst into cackling laughter.

"PEEVES!" cried the monster, coming to a halt somewhere around the third-floor landing. The Potter could see the floor quite clearly, but that was about all, due to the awkward positioning of his head.

"What's that I — d_ungbombs!_ I just CLEANED THIS CORRIDOR! _PEEVES! I'LL SEE YOU IN—_"

"_No teaching naughty words to students!_" said the imp, flying in circles around them, although the Potter had to deduce this from the breeze.

"Dumbledore will hear of this!" said the monster.

Peeves blew a particularly enthusiastic raspberry.

_Wet, too, most intriguing!_ thought the Potter. _How does he do it?_

"_Arrgh!_" said the monster, and resumed dragging the Potter downwards. Down down down they went, bottoming out at the entrance hall, then sidewise to a small and fishy-smelling room, where the Potter was slung into a chair opposite a desk.

The monster stepped behind the desk and the Potter got his first good look at him, in the light of a dangling oil lamp.

_Oh, dear,_ he thought. _Look at you._

Hunched shoulders, hunched back, knobbly hands (_rheumatoid arthritis?_), pouchy gray saggy face (_edematic? cyanosis despite exertion suggesting heart disease and/or arterial blockage_), breath coming hard and wheezily (_indications of emphysema, COPD indeterminate but you belong in hospital, not at work...)_

The as yet anonymous unhealthy monster flipped open a black metal box on the desk and took out a blank index card, and then took up a quill from a slot on this desk. "What's your name, boy? An' don't even think about lying!"

"Potter," said the Potter. "Harry James."

The monster's eyes flicked to the Scar, and the Potter managed to lock onto them on their way back down.

"Rules is rules," said the monster, staring at him.

"Quite right," said the Potter.

"Out of dormitory — in the old days it would have been a taste of the lash, today...today..." He was starting to look a bit blank.

The Potter said, "Being out of dormitory at five, messing about the corridors? _Potter should be _forced _to get up at five every day and help _clean _the corridors."_

The unhealthy monster said, "You should be _forced_ to get up at five every day and help _clean_ the corridors!"

"Oh no, not that!" said the Potter, maintaining his gaze. "Don't _let the punishment fit the crime!_"

"EXACTLY THAT!" roared the unhealthy monster, and the Potter looked down repentantly. "Let the punishment fit the _crime!" _The quill scratched furiously across the card. _Interesting. Paperwork by hand? In a world of magic? Shoelaces notwithstanding..._ "You'll be hearing from your Head of House soon enough, cully! Now get out of my office, and stay out of my sight until tomorrow morning!"

The Potter got.

#

The Fat Lady looked down at him.

"Password?"

"Ouroboros — but don't open yet. May I ask you three questions? That was the first."

"You may ask me as many as you like, though I can't promise to answer them."

"This one's going to sound silly, but it's important. What's eighteen times seventeen?"

She gave him the eyebrow raised. "Is this a homework question?"

Bright smile. "Classes haven't started yet."

"Oh, well...eighteen times seventeen...one hundred and eighty plus...seventy is two hundred fifty, plus...fifty-six is three hundred and six. Why?"

"Generally people don't memorize past twelve times twelve, I wanted to see you work it out, and you did, and it was brilliant. Third question — what's your name?"

"Name?" she said, looking at him with puzzlement.

"Name. Everybody should have a name, what's yours?"

"My name is..." She blinked. "My name is...Marguerite du Mont."

_But was it before I asked?_

"Very happy to meet you, Madam du Mont. My name's Harry Potter, and we must talk again sometime."

#

Pink light was streaming in the tower windows when he got back to the dormitory. The Longbottom had stopped snoring but no one was quite awake yet.

He lay down on his bed.

There was a carving he hadn't noticed before, on the roof of the bed above the curtain rings at the foot end.

_Ruhest Du Auch_  
_Care is heavy, therefore sleep you,  
You are care, and care must keep you._

What a sweet sentiment...

And the day finally began.


	4. Day One

_I went out to the hazel wood_  
_because a fire was in my head,_  
_and cut and peeled a hazel wand_  
_and hooked a berry to a thread;_  
_And when white moths were on the wing_  
_and moth-like stars were flickering out,_  
_I dropped the berry in a stream_  
_and caught a little silver trout._

— Yeats.

#

**Day One.**

"Good morning, you lot!" said the Potter once the rest of the mice were confirmed stirring. "Anyone want to go down to breakfast with me? —Bit of poking around on the way?" he added, rubbing his hands together.

The consensus was "Bleargh", plus one flung pillow, but that bounced off the owner's bed-curtains so it didn't count.

"Fine, then, I'll go on me own, if the syrup's all gone that's your own lookout."

He Astaired his way down the appropriate case (_How nice of Peeves to throw me this cane!_) and into the common room, which was as yet empty except for Percy Weasley, who was looking in a mirror while pinning on his silver badge.

"Ah, Potter," said the perfect prefect, "you're up. _And_ dressed, good. Professor McGonagall sent me a blue owl — wants to see you immediately, preferably sooner. I'll take you." He reached into his pocket and produced a small snuffbox.

The Potter watched curiously as Percy opened the snuffbox and took a pinch of...stuff. "Aren't you a bit young for that sort of thing?"

"What sort of thing? Over here by the fireplace, please. And leave that in the umbrella stand, there's a good chap."

#

_Fire, they travel by _fire_, why did the train even have cars, the engine would be enough, wouldn't even need to leave the station..._

"We're here, Professor," said Percy, steering the Potter away from the fireplace from which they had just emerged and placing him front and center before a desk.

"That was admirably fast, Mr Weasley," came a voice from a nearby door. "You may help yourself to a biscuit; I shall be with you momentarily."

Percy took a bikky from a box on the desk, smacked the Potter's hand when he reached for one too and then stepped off to the side and tried to look inconspicuous.

"There are two items on the agenda, Mr Potter," said the McGonagall, entering the room still sliding pins into her bun. She sat down behind the desk and took up an index card from the blotter. She fixed him with what could easily have been a laserlike glare. (Did wizards have lasers? he wouldn't put it past them.) "First, Mr Filch informs me that he caught you out of dormitory this morning. This is quite serious."

"I was only looking for a lavatory, Professor."

The McGonagall's expression clouded. Darkly. "It's unwise to tell lies to your head of house, Mr Potter, even if you have two of them." (_I have two heads?_ thought the Potter, and felt strangely accomplished.) "—What is it, Weasley?" added the McGonagall, having noticed Percy's raised hand.

"With respect, Professor," said Percy, in a slightly crumb-afflicted voice, "there are no...facilities in that dormitory."

"Don't be ridiculous, Weasley, of course there are."

"No ma'am, not in that one. There _was_ an externally mounted privy, but that collapsed in 1764 during Dr Johnson's tour."

Appalled intrigue from the McGonagall. "Surely not Samuel Johnson the hexicographer?"

"The very same. Fortunately he had his wand out or he might have been injured. That's prefect lore, of course, he never told Boswell — but in any case the maintenance department at the time just cast an impeding charm on the dormitory so you wouldn't need to...get up at night, and no one ever got around to doing a proper job. You could check the records. It's very possible the charm needs a refresher, which I think would fall in...Mr Filch's sphere. Or ideally the plumbing could finally be upgraded?"

"I see," said the McGonagall. The Potter noted a slight change in expression on her face when the name Filch was referenced. "Thank you, Weasley." She took up a quill and wrote with flashing-blade urgency on the card, paused, and then wrote another line on the card, which according to the wobbling end of the quill began with _P.S._ and ended with _Johnson?_

She got up and opened the office window to reveal a small bell mounted on the wall outside, which she rang. After a moment a blue owl flew by and landed on the windowsill. McGonagall gave it the card and said "Professor Dumbledore, and quickly." She watched the owl flutter off and closed the window before turning back to the Potter.

"The second matter is private, Weasley," she said. "You may go to breakfast."

Percy gave a little bow and stepped to the door. "Oh, um, Professor...we still haven't gotten our orientation packets. I should have given them out last night."

The McGonagall sighed, and wrote a note on a pad on her desk. "I shall see to it. It's that new printer again — first ten thousand acceptance letter blanks, then they misprint the coursebook requirements..."

Percy left.

"With me, Mr Potter," said the McGonagall. "We're going to the Hospital Wing. Apparently there are concerns about your health."

#

Clock-clock-clock went the shoes of the McGonagall as she led him through the first-floor halls.

"As long as the subject's up, are wizards on the National Health at all?" inquired the Potter. "Because this morning Mr Filch had the kind of —" wave hand up and down in front of face — "pallor that people get just before they have to stop in for a quick quadruple bypass."

"We try to avoid contact with exterior bureaucracies, Mr Potter; our own are quite enough. But your concern has been noted—oh, no."

"_Yeeeeeheeheeheeheeeee!_"

It was Peeves again, doing figure-8s in the hallway ahead.

"Just keep walking, Mr Potter, and avoid eye contact."

Peeves spotted them and quickly came zooming in. "_Potter wants his potty!" _he chanted. _"Potter wants his potty!_"

And the Potter totally failed to not make eye contact.

"Oh, _look at you!_" he said, still walking but rotating to keep Peeves in sight. "You're _different._ They say you're a poltergeist but you're not a ghost...what could you possibly be?"

He locked stares with Peeves.

Eyes like deep black pools. _But every pool has a bottom, I know you're down there somewhere, where are you, what are you, who are you_...

Fingersnap-realization.

The Potter pointed his finger and the poltergeist stopped in midair. "—Of course!" said the Potter. "You're the _school spirit!_ Actual non-metaphorical school spirit! You're _brilliant!_ Oh, I love this place more and more..." He clapped his hands and bounced backwards a few steps down the hall.

"Come along, Mr Potter, we're nearly there," said the McGonagall, applying hand to collar and dragging him along after her.

"Oh, can't I talk to him just a little bit?" protested the Potter as they left a well and truly puzzled Peeves behind.

#

After passing what appeared to be a tiny gift shop with balloons and candy and other necessities, they passed through a set of double doors into an area that didn't so much scream "Triage" as calmly note it, and from there into what was obviously a nurse's office, judging by the nurse in it, and you could tell she was a nurse by the utterly diagnostic way she looked at the Scar.

"Have a seat, young man," said the nurse, as the McGonagall faded into the background. The nurse indicated a stool, the rotating top kind, which he hopped up onto and quite happily put to its intended use until she stopped him _without_ a long-suffering sigh. _You're good,_ he thought. And Professor McGonagall was examining the ceiling tiles.

"This won't take long," she said. "We received word _very_ early this morning that you pitched over in King's Cross, so we want to make sure there's nothing wrong with you."

She turned to her desk, upon which sat a transparent box that seemed to be of soap-bubble construction. She picked it up and placed it over his head, where it stuck as though it had been mounted with screws to the top of his skull, and then rotated it twice. When she pulled it off, it took his head with it.

Quick slap of his cheek. _Nope, still there, must be a copy._ Well of course it is.

She placed the box firmly in the air, drew her wand and pointed it at the head. Its structure separated — brain over there, skull over there, eyes et cetera et cetera, and all of it went translucent grey. She poked at the bits with the tip of her wand, and other than rotating obediently they just sat placidly, except that the Scar flickered red briefly.

She tapped the box with her wand and it folded up into a sheet, taking the head with it; she put it in a filing cabinet under P.

There were footsteps approaching, still outside the triage room. And voices you had to decode...

"_Really, Severus, is this necessary?_" (Dumbledore? Dumbledore.)

"_In my field we prefer certainty to probability, Headmaster_." Dry, unknown. "_If Professor McGonagall chooses belief, that is her privilege; doubt is mine._" (Snape? Probably Snape.)

"_Well, if it will make you happy..._"

Silence.

The silence became a pause, then one set of footsteps continued through the double doors.

The nurse was poking him with her blue-tipped wand now.

"How are my liver and lights?" asked the Potter.

"As good as your heart, young man." The nurse turned to the McGonagall. "Perfectly healthy, if underfed. I like his knees."

"So do I!" said the Potter.

"Good morning!" said the Headmaster, appearing in the doorway.

"Albus!" said the McGonagall. "How you do sneak up."

"As light on my feet as a cat, Minerva," he said, smiling. "I have of course received your communications, as well as those of Professor Snape." He turned his twinkling gaze to the Potter.

_Oho,_ thought the Potter as the Headmaster caught his eye. _From laser to particle beam._

The Dumbledore looked over to the McGonagall. "I have examined the records, Minerva," said the Dumbledore — _the colours of a bumblebee are black and yellow, just like Hufflepuff's, interesting_ — "and to my satisfaction the explanation given is sufficient. However —" here he produced a small vial — "Severus has his doubts."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Albus. That can't be veritaserum!"

"_Tu dixisti_, Minerva. _Esse est percipi_, or possibly the other way around." The Dumbledore turned back and leaned down to the Potter, simultaneously removing the cap from the vial. It was a squeeze-bulb eyedropper. "Your other head of house wants to be sure you're not up to something, Mr Potter, so we must alleviate his concerns. If you'd be so kind as to stick out your tongue — well, perhaps not quite _that_ far..."

Three drops of distilled water with a trace of ethyl formate, not his personal tongue but he was still pretty sure.

And here comes that blue particle-beam look again...

"Why were you out of dormitory this morning, Harry?"

"I was looking for the lavatory."

"Is that the only reason?"

"So far as I know. Was a _bit_ distracted, if I had an ulterior motive I didn't notice." _Should I _get_ an ulterior motive...?_

"Oh, what a refuge is truth!" said the Dumbledore, straightening up and poking his half-moon (_moon, why moon?_) spectacles further up his nose. "I find no fault here, save perhaps with the maintenance departments of yesteryear. I see no reason for punishment this early in the semester. You may stay in bed of a morning, Mr Potter, Mr Filch's desires notwithstanding."

"Um," said the Potter. "If it's all the same to you, sir, I'd rather not add to the caretaker's woes."

The Headmaster blinked. "You wish to mop floors?"

"These hands aren't strangers to labour, sir," said the Potter, waggling the fingers. They weren't, either. "Why make anyone less happy? —Also, honestly, _magic castle_, and I hate missing _anything._"

"Then by all means report as ordered, Mr Potter. —I concur with your diagnosis, Madam Pomfrey."

"That reminds me, Poppy," said the McGonagall to the nurse. "Has Mr Filch had his checkup lately?"

"He's been putting it off since 1986," said the nurse, finally producing the long-suffering sigh. "And all those muggle chemicals can't be doing him any good."

"Are there concerns for Mr Filch's health?" inquired the Dumbledore.

"Yes," said the McGonagall and the nurse.

"Then I shall issue an appropriate directive," said the Dumbledore. "If there are no other issues troubling anyone? Splendid, I understand that the house elves have had a breakthrough in the construction of something called 'bagels' and I'm quite eager to take one for a test flight. Good morning!"

#

After being released from the Hospital Wing — and after mentioning to Professor McGonagal a muggle invention called a typewriter that could save Mr Filch quite a lot of bother — the Potter went along to breakfast.

At the entrance he paused. Gryffindor or Slytherin?

Other than Percy, who was prodding a blueberry bagel with a dubious wand, exactly none of the other Gryffindors had arrived yet, the Potter's detour notwithstanding; but there were widely scattered Slytherins at their table, including the Malfoy and the prefect he'd borrowed a book from, what was his name, Terry Beaconsfield — so he went over to say hello.

"Hello!" he said.

"At last," said the Beaconsfield, looking up from what appeared to be a puzzle book, in which he was working with ink. "Joining us for some machinations?"

"I love machinations at breakfast. At dinner they put me off my pudding. —Is that a multi-language crossword you're doing? Where'd you get it?"

"We've got stacks of these in our common room," said the prefect. "But I'm sure Gryffindor has similar accomodations," he added innocently.

(..._All Out Quidditch_, _Broomsport_, _Quidditch Comix_, _Your Broomstick,_ _Quidditch News_, _The Quaffler_, _Quidditch Illustrated_, _Quidditch Pro Quo_, _Twig & Stig_, _Chaser's World_, _Bludger & Snitch,_ _Quidditch Annual_,_ Quidditch Monthly_, _Quidditch Weekly_, _Quidditch Today_, _Quidditch Now* (*incorporating_ _Quidditch!),_ and _Golf Digest_. Well, it _was_ Scotland...)

"Yes," said the Potter, staring out the window at the oncoming horizon, "absolutely — stacks, it does have stacks."

He plunked himself down next to the Malfoy, who was tucking away a great stack of something fluffy and brown. "No ghosts at breakfast? That's good. Are those American-style pancakes?"

The prefect turned back to his puzzle. "I understand there's an exchange student from Vast Toffee, Minnesota. Brought a recipe, apparently..."

The Malfoy glared at him sidewise. "How did you do it, Potter?"

"Do what?"

"Get sorted into two houses."

"Well, I _asked_ for Hufflepuff but the hat said they'd stuff me out a window. Then it said Ravenclaw didn't need any more towers blown up. And _then_ it said I was irresponsible, capricious, arrogant and self-opinionated."

"That's Gryffindor, what about Slytherin?"

"You have the best chess club."

"Indeed we do," said the prefect, now seemingly focused on his puzzle. "Seven boards every Wednesday night, feel free to drop by."

"Sev—Am I drooling? Sorry. Have some sliced banana, Draco, it's good for you. —Oh, I will stop by. I'm just not sure where I should kip tonight."

"There was a bed for you downstairs, but they took it away," lied the Malfoy. _Did you push it together with your own? Do you fall out of bed? Or did you...well, eleven's a bit old for that, still, it might have been a scary night..._

"Do you play chess, Draco?" asked the Potter.

Guardedly: "Yes...?"

"Wednesday?"

Challenge made, challenge accepted: "All right."

"Good! Maybe I can earn my kip." He grabbed three strawberry bagels from the center of the table. "In the meantime, I need to go see what's holding up late arrivals elsewhere. Catch you later, gentlemen! Beaconsfield, I'll have your book back by the end of the week."

#

He had the Longbottom and the Weasley at their table just in time for morning announcements. ("All I'm saying, Ron, is that we should take our Escher staircases as we find them...") ("Take them _where?_")

"Important first-year programming note," said Percy, tapping the base of his wand on the table for attention. "Despite what the coursebook requirements implied, first-years are _not_ doing Care of Magical Creatures. If you'll turn your books in to me, they'll be exchanged for Astronomy texts by tomorrow night in time for your midnight class. And yes, normally Astronomy is midnight _Saturday_ for first years, but according to the memo —" glance toward the High Table, Professor Dumbledore waved — "everything is all _farshimmelt _for reasons that don't even bear thinking about, possibly involving Morris dancing."

The Granger raised her hand. _There's a clever girl, she didn't get lost._ "Have our orientation packets come in yet?"

"I'm told they should be in by noon. Apparently the Ministry of Magic changed printing house from Mergenthaumer to Cranston Manatype over the summer and they're still shaking out the bugs. —Now, here's your Monday course schedules," he added, passing out seven sheets of paper — well, six, he kept one for himself. Two went to other prefects, presumably sixth and seventh years, one he gave to Hermione, three went to possibly random members of the second, third and fourth years. Only one sheet per year? Well, we travel in packs...

"Hey, Perce, why does McGonagall like you best?" said the hypothesised seventh-year prefect.

"Well," said the perfect prefect with extreme modesty, "I am quite keen, you know...

"You firsts are only doing only Herbology today; you shouldn't have any trouble finding the greenhouses: they're...outside."

#

"People," said Professor Pomona Sprout, "are like plants.

"Therefore, plants are like people. You can never take a plant for granted, especially a magical one; each is unique.

"The most effective way to make this point is for you to raise whole generations of plants for practice, and so our first week will focus on _Dolandeae Bruchnereae Laskae Mogareae_, a mandrake hybrid with such verve that under Lumos Maxima it completes a life cycle, seed pod to seed pod, in forty-two minutes. Today I will give each of you a seed pod; come Thursday afternoon you will return the descendant of that seed pod to me — if you've learned your lessons."

#

"It _bit_ me!" said the Weasley, flinging his hand about. "Why'd it bite me? I was being careful! And where'd it get the _teeth?_"

"Spines," said the Granger. "Not teeth."

"Maybe it wasn't ready to be repotted," said the Potter. "Or grew too quickly."

"Maybe it should have just held off on the spine-growing," said the Weasley, crossly.

"Sometimes they just bite for no reason," said Professor Sprout. "Or at least no reason discernible from the outside, which is much the same thing."

"From the outside, much the same," echoed the Potter, contemplating the contents of his pot. _Now, how do you make eye contact with something with no eyes?_

_#_

"Ah, dirty fingernails," said the Potter as they staggered out of the greenhouse, "I feel untrustworthy with dirty fingernails. To say nothing of dirty fingers..."

"Dirty _hands_," said the Granger.

"Dirty _everything_," said the Weasley. "I think it laid something in my _sock_..."

The Longbottom said nothing, just crumbled a little. But he looked perfectly happy, what you could see of him. (_Athletic little devils, those __mogata vervoida_, thought the Potter.)

"We can't go in the castle like this," said the Granger. "But how are we supposed to clean up? All the washrooms are inside!"

"Why not go jump in the lake?" a passing Slytherin suggested brightly.

"That's a _thought_," said the Potter. _Do wizards have old tyres on ropes?_

"We could use the greenhouse water hose," said the Weasley.

"How about the misters for the bonsai sequoias?" said the Longbottom. "Greenhouse seven, did you notice?"

"_Sequoia sempervirens!_" said the Potter. "Tannin-rich bark, I love a good sequoia! Let's visit!"

"That would all just make mud," said the practical Granger. That was broadly true, and they had no soap. What did they have? Oh, right, they had Hogwarts.

"I know exactly how to solve this," said the Potter. "Follow me."

They ran after him to the castle steps, which were strewn with students making the best use of available sun. _Where's a nice big Hufflepuff?_ he thought, surveying the menu._ Here we are._

"Hello!" he said to the nice big Hufflepuff. "I'm Benny Carter—no. Harry Potter. Would you be interested in getting in a bit of practice on your _scourgify_ and/or _tergeo_?"

#

"I feel so..._exfoliated_," said the Granger as they entered the Great Hall.

"Invigorating, isn't it?" said the Potter. "Now you know why snakes do it."

"Have I still got eyebrows?" said the Weasley. "I can't feel them."

"Course you do, 's why I picked a Hufflepuff, they do things properly."

Said the Longbottom, "My teeth taste _minty_."

#

Noon came and went with no sign of informative packets, so the Potter and the Granger got directions to the library from Percy ("Third floor, not fourth, there's an entrance on the fourth but it goes into the restricted section") and escorted the Weasley and the Longbottom back up to the common room before going back down again.

"You know what this castle needs?" said the Potter, abruptly putting on his pointy hat and yanking it down over his face on the grounds that Mr Filch was also on the third floor, hanging a KEEP OUT sign over the forbidden corridor. "Ladders down the outsides."

"After we learn _wingardium leviosa_ I'm just going to jump out windows all the time," said the Granger.

She pushed through the library's swinging doors — and came to a halt so complete it stayed halted even when the Potter walked straight into her back.

_My, my,_ thought the Potter, after wrenching his hat back off.

A hundred books on a shelf, a hundred shelves on a rack, a hundred racks...a million books took up a lot of space. The library probably didn't actually fit in the building. _Which just sums up the whole wizard world, really; invent dimensional transcendence because putting a whole book on a Chocolate Frog card would be, one way or another, unthinkable..._

"Is there something wrong with you, girl?" asked the Librarian.

Apparently there was, because the Granger had tears running down her cheeks. (Happy? Sad?)

"_There's more books than I can read,_" she answered. (Both?)

The Potter touched her on the shoulder. "All the world is birthday cake," he said.

"...What?"

Happy diversion, no sign of recognition. _Never seen _Yellow Submarine_? Have to do something about that._ "I'll explain later."

"And what are _you_ looking for, boy?" said the Librarian.

The Potter looked up at her.

"Everything!" said he.

#

He started with a copy of _Izzard's Guide to Izzard's Guides_ and worked his way out from there, and what he found was this:

The _how_ of magic was simple. Any wizard of sufficient puissance could create a new spell. All that was necessary was to formulate, with limpid clarity, a desired outcome in the mind, and it would happen. If it didn't happen, you needed to turn up the knobs on your limpidity and clarity. If it _still_ didn't happen, you'd either run up against the bounds of magic or were in conflict with prior art.

Limpid clarity was apparently in very short supply, hence the existence of magical schools. Once you'd made a spell, you could tag it with a phrase and a pattern. From then on anywizard who combined the phrase and the motion correctly could get the same result. Clever people could be sloppy in the invocation, not-clever people had to be very precise.

Theory of magic basically consisted of iterating over existing spells looking for patterns. The _why_ of magic was essentially missing. There was no sign of an obvious foundation for the magic in the world, and no one seemed to want to look very hard for it, for fear it would suddenly go away and leave them all muggles.

The why of magic was, in short, the big lacuna.

_Cowabunga_, thought the Potter, and wrote WHY in the center of his mental chalkboard, and put MOON next to it, along with a dotted circle outline to represent what he'd missed on the train. And then he added _sempervirens_ for no obvious reason.

Finally — after scanning through _1001 Practical Housekeeping Charms — _he went to dinner.

#

The orientation packets arrived mid-way through the main course, thick envelopes packed with rules and regulations.

Sometime around pudding, a blue owl flew into the room. It delivered by way of P. Weasley a message from A. Filch to H. Potter indicating that the last was expected to be outside the Fat Lady's portrait at 5:00 AM.

"They wouldn't let you off?" said Percy. "I thought...oh, well, best go to bed early, Potter."

"_Potter_ got detention—" began Fred.

"—his first _day?_" completed George.

"Technically, before his first day," said Percy, turning over the letter to its recipient.

"We should create some sort of award," said Fred.

#

The after-dinner trip upstairs was this time unimpeded by Peeves, and after making it the Potter did indeed go straight to bed.

After alphabetising the common room bookcase, of course, because that had been niggling at the back of his mind _all day_ (the collection was rather heavy on titles like _Up The Amazon And Down The Alps With Wand And Camera_, by Major Brabazon Grubbly-Plank), and then the magazine racks too, and then watching the Longbottom lose to the Weasley at wizard chess, and then helping the Granger with her lack of Herbology homework (she needed some invented, couldn't get to sleep otherwise).

When he finally did go to bed, he watched colours fade to grey and then black with the kind of anticipation that made falling asleep extremely difficult. What would Harry have to say, if anything...?

#

_It's like a burning library in here!_


	5. The Background To History Part One

_Just think: Someone in this world is an authority on the topic of whether mice can or cannot put on two-tone shoes, derby hats, pinstriped shirts, and Dacron pants, and pass as humans._  
—Philip K. Dick

#

**The Background To History (Part One).**

_...the barber shaves all those who don't shave themselves, who shaves the barber? well, that's obvious... ...the cuckoo singing in the cuckooberry tree, the twin hearts that beat as one... ...nobody understands me, Mrs Loring, I'm the King of California... ...it's the situation that's all wrong._ _It's very disconcerting to have a large void in the middle of one's mind..._

_...and a bucket of mud, right, need to go to greenhouse for that, _why_, because that's where they keep the mud and the buckets, they've got mud at the lake but no buckets..._

_...The Reinettes Sing Medieval Magical History, please..._

_...even as a child, there's something in your brain that's a puzzlement._

The Potter awoke to a throbbing in his chest, or rather on his chest, or rather in between his pajamas and his chest.

It was, of course, his wand.

In _1001 Practical Housekeeping Charms_ there was a simple spell that allowed you to use your wand as an egg timer, and this of course had other uses — although some modification had been required because apparently for some unknown reason wizards didn't boil eggs more than six hours at a go, but it did work, and so it was now 4:45 AM. (There was also a spell to instantaneously boil eggs without water, but to each his own. Anyway he didn't have any eggs.)

_Why do I need a bucket of mud?_

Because of Neville's natterjack — _bufo calamita —_ with a binomial name like that no wonder he loses it, I'd want rid of it too, asking for trouble...

The Potter stilled his alarm charm and Harried up a _lumos_ to shine into the owl cage sitting on the floor next to the bed. Contents: one toad, short-toed, can't hop, runs instead, red warts, green eyes, loud mouth, yellow streak down its back, _I swear, mirrors everywhere,_ not you Harry, _course not Harry, Harry gets his body taken over by heaven only knows who and says _Oh, what now?

And of course your basic _bufo calamita_ hibernates from September to April, hence the bucket of mud to bury itself in — what kind of school pet does a toad _make_ — though it seems asleep already, hope it didn't starve to death overnight, don't currently have any insects, worms, small reptiles or thyme —

_Ahh!_ 4:46 already, no thyme _and_ no time to waste!

Jammies off, clothes on (_mem: do laundry_), trainers on, hat, _forget_ hat, get a _better_ hat, silently over to stairs, there, see, _I_ don't run, less and less silently down spiral, _spiral stairs are fun_, shall I leap exulting like the bounding roe, _no, it's 4:48 in the morning for goodness sake. _Across common room to portrait door, magazines all out of order again, _sigh,_ slip through door very carefully so as not to wake Marguerite du Mont.

Argus Filch was waiting with his baleful glare and a bucket with wheels on. And Mrs Norris the cat. And a mop. _What a nice mop! Is that for me?_ Careful, don't enjoy this, he'll be miserable if you do.

The Potter adopted a woeful countenance.

The glowering caretaker said "I'll have thy wand, boy — you'll do no cheating under me."

The Potter turned over the objectionable stick and received the mop in exchange. Teak-handled mop, blue painted, lovely!

The caretaker pointed toward the end of the hallway like the Ghost of Future Floor Polish.[1] "Start here, work yer way down there, I'll be back in ten minutes to see how yer doing, and just so you don't get any funny ideas, Mrs Norris'll be watchin' ye."

The caretaker stalked off into the near-darkness, and the Potter dunked his mop into bleach-smelling water. _Yes, Harry, _thought the Potter, _you're cleaning again, but not like at the Dursleys. This is different. _

_That_ was sadness.

_This_ is _Hogwarts!_

_#_

Mopping is easy, you just divide the hall into squares according to the Pinkerton method and have at it. Aaand of course there was a trick, but it wouldn't do to think about that so long as Mrs Norris was around.

Thinking of Mrs Norris...

After five minutes of methodically working his way down the hall he stopped and bent down to the cat.

"And what can I do for you, then, Mrs Norris?"

=(_Don't make a mess, don't make noise, don't make trouble._)=

_Noise,_ he thought, dunking the mop again. Yes, of course, noise, Filch is undoubtedly headache prone, right, what was there in _1001 Practical Housekeeping Charms_ that might be related to noise? Hmm, yes, that carpet padding charm might do...

He continued working with the mop. Twirl, twirl, thrust, parry, _can you guess what I'm up to, Mrs Norris?_ No?

_Clunk clunk clunk,_ here was Mr Filch coming back with a thermos full of something. Tea? Coffee? Brandy? Banana dacquiris?

"Huh," said the caretaker, surveying the results thus far with suspicion. He looked to Mrs Norris. "Has be been up to summat?"

Mrs Norris blinked with elegant indifference. =(_What he was told..._)=

"You _did_ take my wand, sir," said the Potter innocently.

"That I did."

_And then you handed me a replacement five times larger, _thought the Potter. _Bit of a mixed signal there, still, not my fault if it works a treat..._

The caretaker unscrewed his thermos top and poured himself a cup of cocoa. (Well, can't get 'em all right.) "You carry on like that, boy," said he with disgruntled satisfaction. "We'll be checking in on ye from time to time, one way or another..."

He disappeared into the dimness again. Mrs Norris looked at the Potter thoughtfully and then pattered silently after.

The Potter resumed mopping. Which was to say, resumed the drawing of cleaning and grime-prevention sigils onto the floor, and occasionally squirting padding charms at the ceiling to quiet down the hallway noise.

And of course he was also taking careful note of the portraits. Most of the residents were asleep, though some were watching him with varying degrees of curiosity. They tended to be dressed in Gryffindor colours. Toward the far end of the hallway, though, a green and silver exception caught his eye. A small painting, hung low and inconspicuous: a young man, dozing at a table, head propped on fist — _not dozing, waiting — _face faintly familiar, blond hair; there was a label on his frame.

_Iphitus Malfoy_

Curious...

Flash of yellow-green eyes: _hello_ Mrs Norris.

#

And here he was backed up against the wall, mopped into a corner, oops.

He looked into the candle-lit distance.

_Now, think about this. Medieval castle, yes, fine, but this is the century of the fruitcake, textured stone all well and good but still a dirt magnet, why not do a proper job and just put some transparent coating over the whole thing? Keep the rough-hewn granite charm but keep the dirt off, save a lot of bother...?_

Giant castle, eight floors not counting the mezzanine, 142 staircases, one caretaker with no magic ability. And no help. There were those house elves — but no, he smelled of pride or shame (see under _same coin, two sides of the_) and so wouldn't or couldn't ask; and if he had magic help, would they need _him_?

_Thin, thin, thin,_ arrived Mr Filch. _Much_ better than _clunk clunk clunk._

"Done, are ye?" The caretaker surveyed the results. "Well, 'twill do, I suppose..."

_I endeavour to give satisfaction, sir._ "Shall I move on to the sixth floor, Mr Filch?" he asked, as distant clocks began to strike six.

"Tomorrow," said Filch, after a moment.

"Should I keep the mop and bucket?" _They're probably spares, and if I don't, you'll have to take them all the way back..._

Silence...

"Mought's well," grudged Filch, and returned his wand. "I'll expect you at the same time, same place."

#

The Potter took the bucket and mop up to the dormitory, and set them next to the bed. What to do with the dirty water had been an unasked question: Filch just opened a window, picked up the bucket and slung its contents outside. Stronger than he looked, Mr Filch.

This time the Potter waited — reading and rereading his orientation packet plus his only copy of the _Daily Prophet_ — until everyone was up and running before suggesting they go down to breakfast together. Today they were willing to listen to reason, and so they all made it in good time.

"Harry, why don't you get lost?" said the Longbottom, dumping most of a jam jar onto his toast.

"I beg your pardon?" said the Potter, swiping most of the jam from the Longbottom's toast.

"I mean — lost, you don't get, why?"

"Ah," said the Potter, watching the Weasley swipe most of his jam. "I could say I have an almost preternatural sense of direction, but in fact there's a trick. Have you noticed I'm always staring up at the ceiling?"

"Well, yeah, we kept you from falling down the stairs about five times," said the Weasley, watching the Granger swipe most of his jam.

"No, you just thought you did," said the Potter severely. "Anyway, if you look at the _walls_, you'll get lost — they're too visually noisy, too complicated for you to memorise easily: the whole castle's a maze of twisty little passages, all different. _And_ the contents move about. But the _ceilings_, they're stable, unique and simple. The variations in paint, candle smoke, water damage, the quills — it's like looking at clouds. Once you recognise the faces, you'll generally know where you are."

They all watched Dean Thomas swipe most of the Granger's jam.

"What?" said Dean Thomas.

"You're supposed to swipe to the left," said Seamus Finnegan, swiping most of Thomas's jam.

#

Before they left for their first class, the Potter got up and stopped by the rapidly emptying Slytherin table.

"Hello!" he said the the Malfoy. "Did you know you've got an ancestor upstairs?"

"I have no idea what you mean," said the Malfoy warily, stacking high a sandwich made of bacon sandwiches.

"Portrait of one Iphitus Malfoy on the seventh floor. Bit of a standout amidst all those Gryffindors. Do you know him?"

The Malfoy thought this over while crunching. "Never heard of him," he said. "Could be from a cadet branch. S'pose I should owl home, if he's a misfile..."

The Potter leaned in conspiratorially. "Incidentally, if the Bloody Baron puts you off your feed, you _could_ come over to our table."

"Aha, thank you, no, I think not," said the Malfoy, turning his attention back to his sandwich.

"My office is always open," said the Potter, and went off to lead people classward.

#

"As it says on the chalkboard, this is Charms, and I am Professor Flitwick," said the tiny floating teacher. "In addition to teaching Charms I am the school choirmaster. This is not coincidental, for if you trace the word charm you will find that its root lies in song.

"Due to careless use of terminology, you will find many a spell called a charm that is strictly not a charm at all." He sighed. "As the Ministry of Magic has a policy of pragmatism we will be covering those wand-biased spells as well, eventually, but in the practical section of this course for our first few weeks we will focus on diction, pronunciation, and, yes, singing.

"Our text for this first class will be 'Scarborough Fair', the lyrics of which I have here. Take one sheet and pass the rest along. We will cycle the verses so everyone gets a solo, though we'll all come in for 'every rose grows merry with time'."

_She does?_ thought the Potter. _Well, that's a relief._

Now what did I mean by that?

#

"You're very good, Ron," said the Granger as they left the classroom eighty-five minutes later.

"Yeah, we always sing rounds at Christmas," said the Weasley. "And New Year's.

"And Twelfth Night.

"And Candlemas Day, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Pancake Day, Easter, April Fool's Day — we never really _stop_, actually..."

"What's the matter, Harry?" asked the Longbottom.

The Potter, his boy soprano hopes dashed, just grumbled stormily.

"Practice, Harry, practice," said the Longbottom.

#

"Um — Professor Proust — _Sprout_ — would anyone mind if I borrowed a bucket of mud till around April? I have a dozy toad."

#

_"Oh, mairzy toads and dozy toads and little lambs eat ivy—"_

"I _said_ I take it back about the practising, Harry!" said the Longbottom, pressing his muddy hands tighter across his ears.

#

Suppertime came around, as it did. Draco Malfoy did not, but oh, those wistful glances over his shoulder.

"Now we art all here," said Percy, handing out Astronomy books, "and just to be totally clear on this, midnight _Wednesday_ means one minute after 11:59 PM _Tuesday_. Midnight _Thursday_, 11:59 _Wednesday_. And so on." A vision of Vernon Dursley slinging a video cassette recorder through a closed window crossed the Potter's mind's eye. "Got that, firsties? Secondies? Certain thirdies who shall remain nameless_ and that means you, Bob_?

"Good.

"Now, hands up, you firsties who thought to bring alarm clocks. Granger and Longbottom? Consider yourselves in charge of getting everyone else up. You'll be getting about three hours of sleep tonight. We apologise for the inconvenience."

#

"You may wonder," said Professor Sinistra, as her class bounced up and down in the darkness to keep warm (except Finnegan and Thomas, who'd had the sense to bring a blanket), "what the purpose of this class _is_, other than perhaps to gather information for the astrological form of divination, a subject you are not, I believe, even taking this year.

"Although we astronomers do generate ephemeral tables for divination, that's mainly because we're the ones with the telescopes, the patience, the arithmancy, and the willingness to sit up all night freezing our sextants off.

"Astronomial magic itself is concerned with discovering the true names of celestial objects. We don't yet know any of them, of course, as the stars are so far away that they are beyond our discernment.

"We can, however, work with their _verum nekes_ — true nicknames — and their interrelations.

"Muggle astronomers will tell you that constellations are illusory, the result of visual flattening of three dimensional structures, and broadly that is true, but all things are interconnected, and so choose their own company: some are together though they have been always apart. And so we hope to discern a star's true name _by way of_ its true nickname and its own society.

"How do we do it? Magic!

"Well, we give it our best shot, anyway. _And_ we take a lot of pretty pictures along the way, many of which are available in poster form in the school store.

"Strictly speaking, this is a humanities course, however counterintuitive that may seem. On this tower we hope to give you a sense of the size and structure of the universe, and your place in it.

"First things first, though — who wants hot chocolate?"

#

Three hours after the class had retreated to its warm beds, and after an interesting nap, the Potter was outside the portrait of Marguerite du Mont with mop and bucket.

Of Mr Filch there was no sign. Only Mrs Norris was there.

"What?" said the Potter. "Mr Filch couldn't make it?"

=(_Obviously._)=

_Oho._ Maybe Dumbledore's directive _re_ overdue checkups had borne fruit. "Is Mr Filch in the Hospital Wing?"

=(_Close._)=

"_Actual _hospital? Dear me. I hope they're taking good care of him."

Mrs Norris glared, but since he was telling the simple truth she didn't bite him. She just followed him mistrustfully down to the sixth floor, and sat and watched him mop the floor, all the way from the east wing to the west wing.

From time to time he stopped inscribing filth-countering sigils and just stood there in the dark, listening to the silence.

Hogwarts was never more magical than at night, when even the ghosts were asleep. Nothing was happening, and so _everything_ was possible.

Maybe that was why Filch didn't quit his criminally hard job. He couldn't be a wizard, but in this kind of night, he could still believe otherwise...

The whole thing — so right, yet so wrong, so much the way things people would rather have them, but twisted; so many cracked, so many broken.

#

"Okay, firsties, brace yourselves," said Percy, when it had come time for morning schedule announcements. "Today you will begin to endure in some ways the most excruciating class at Hogwarts. History of Magic with the late Professor Binns."

The Potter had read the text, of course, and it was jolly interesting to an eleven-year-old, to say nothing of deeply disturbing to an adult: the history of magic was largely concerned with people like Emeric the Evil and Medeous the Merciless, and how the Lien of Aericegic had been extracted from Olga of Kiev and why they had stuffed it so far up her nose afterward.[2]

"Why's that, Percy?" asked the Granger.

#

Professor Binns _taught the text,_ that was why_._

This meant that he had digested the coursebook into notes, and he dictated the notes. The entirety of his lecture was therefore redundant, but that wasn't the problem, the problem was that he was an anti-teacher. A great teacher communicates his own enthusiasm for the subject. Enthusiasm was inspiration. Professor Binns had expired some time ago. And his vocal delivery suggested the quiet rushing of a distant stream. He would have been well employed at a kindergarten to help enforce nap time.

_No, no, no,_ thought the Potter. _This can't be allowed. History's _important_, it tells you where you've been and what you've done, and consequently why you don't want to be where you're probably going, good grief, even the Granger's got one eye closed._

Sheets of the Hogwarts orientation packet flipped through his mind. Faculty list : Cuthbert Binns : _Full_ professor, _not_ associate, _not_ assistant, actual _historian_, he's got _two doctorates_, enough degrees to soft-boil an egg.

The Potter raised his hand like unto a flagpole.

"F|||| ||d f|||m|||," continued Professor Binns. "||| w|| d|d|c|||d || ||| C|||c|. ||| b|||c |||l| |f ||| ||m|| C||||l|c m|||, |||||||d| |f g|ld|| ||| |bj|c|| w||| m|d|. ||c||d c|p|, v||||l|, ||l|q||||||...

"...y|s, wh|t is it, Mr Pither?"

"Pardon the interruption, sir, but I've been looking at your class schedule thingy and it doesn't say either way — will we be having any sort of testimony from the school ghosts? Eyewitnesses to history, that sort of thing? It's always best to go to _primary sources_, don't you agree?"

Binns blinked slowly. You could very nearly see the phrase winding through the gears of his ectoplasmic brain. You couldn't call yourself a real history professor without bowing to the altar of Primary Sources...

"I had not previously considered it," said Professor Binns at length, "but there is a certain logic in the proposition, depending on what they might know and/or choose to contribute. I shall introduce the suggestion at the next Ghost Council.

"If there are no further interruptions...?"

There weren't.

At least not for another thirty minutes, when a small Hufflepuff fell out of his chair. But that was all right, he didn't disturb anyone.

#

"Did I miss anything, Harry?" said the Weasley in the hallway afterward. "I don't really remember anything after roll call."

"Professor Binns is going to see about getting the castle ghosts as guest speakers," said the Potter. "I hope he doesn't forget."

"Rest assured, Mr Potter," said Professor Binns dryly as he drifted past, "as a ghost, I have little to do but remember."

#

The Wednesday afternoon Defense Against The Dark Arts class was not an improvement. In fact it was nearly the flip side of history: the rest of the class stayed awake while the Potter could barely keep his eyes open. The classroom was so thickly scented, with either garlic or what smelled like teeth unbrushed for fifty years, that in no time it was as though his head was wrapped in cotton batting and being lightly pounded with a rubber cricket bat in an organically regular pattern, like some multiple of a heartbeat.

"Th—uh," said purple-turbaned Professor Quirrel, "This is _(pom)_ Against The-The Dark Arts _(pom)_ something of a mis, uh, misnomer _(pom),_ even _lumos_ is considered part _(pom)_ light-bringer _(pom)_ Lucifer or Prometheus _(pom)_ myth, uh, mythological muggle rubbish _(pom)_...q-questions?"

"_(pom)_ Africa _(pom) _zombie?" said Seamus Finnegan.

"Er. Not really much _(pom)_ very p-pleasant out of doors at noon _(pom)_ seems l-likely to rain _(pom)_ you must stay all n-night _(pom)_," said Quirrel.

_Dullness is as much produced within doors as without, by rain,_ thought the Potter. (Do you mind? I'm trying to sleep.) _Sorry._ (Actually, no, I apologise, I should be trying harder.) _Quite all right._

He dug into his pocket to find his bag of Bertie Bott's, hoping for a coffee bean. (Well, I _did_ technically bring enough for everybody...)

_Ooh, guarana, that'll do..._

#

"Do you want to borrow my notes?" asked the Granger afterward. "You looked like a flickering bulb in there."

"Um...probably not," said the Potter, doing a few quick deep knee bends. _Oxygenate! Oxygenate!_ "I feel better now, thank you for hinting. He didn't really say much, did he?" Touch toes, _what a splendid spine! When I have a body of my own I shall get one just like it._

"Nothing _good_," said the Weasley. "Does it _matter_ who invented _lumos_? Just show us how to do it, good grief."

"It matters if it's on the test," said the Granger.

"Pythagoras," said the Potter. "554 B.C."

"Oh, you _were_ paying attention," said the Granger, putting her notes away with a hint of disappointment.

"All right," said the Potter agreeably. _You're not even a showoff, you're actually sad that you can't be helpful... _"Wait, did he speak disparagingly of muggle mythology?"

"He was a bit...dismissive," said the Granger, unwillingly.

_Strange, for a former muggle studies teacher._

#

Dinner was a little different that night.

"What is _this?_" said about half a dozen people at each table including the High when the main course appeared.

"That," said Percy, consulting a small piece of paper from his inside pocket, "is something called a Chicago deep dish pizza. You're to use a knife and fork with it, it says here. As a cultural side note, it's 406 miles from Vast Toffee, Minnesota, to Chicago, Illinois, a fast trip in sunglasses at night."

#

They had to carry Neville upstairs afterward ("You know, I'd _heard_ of cheesy grins," said the Weasley), and then, promptly at seven, the Potter trotted downstairs to find the Slytherin common room and its seven chess tables.

_Chess with a dragon, this should be fun!_

* * *

_Notes_

1. Not the actual UK brand name, just to be Klear on that point.

2. Answer: strategy. Nobody respects an evil overlord who's always digging up his or her nose, so they lose power quickly. This is why the really committed evil overlords remove their own noses.


	6. The Background To History Part Deux

_(Should have been part of previous installment. —Ed.)_

#

**The Background To History (Part Deux).**

The Slytherin dungeon had a password-protected secret hidden door, which meant that in order to gain entrance you had to trail late returnees from dinner and leap through the door after them before it closed.

"Hello! Am I late?" said the Potter, rolling to his feet and looking around curiously. Green lamps, green couches, green rugs, green fire too, _bit_ monochromatic, still very handsome though _—_ very high ceilings or maybe very low floors, _good, it'd be all Edgar Allan Premature Burial otherwise._ _Is that a fish tank?_ no, the room's a people tank, note the giant squid outside, that's a window to the lake, better not make any silly cracks—

"A late Gryffindor?" said a tall dark stranger before him, staring him in the neck. _Face unknown, voice familiar._ "Could be..."

Gryffindor? _—_ oops, school tie still showing red and gold.

"Not so much a gryphon, more of a chimera," said the Potter, whipping off the tie to reveal its green and silver flip side. "Head of a lion, tail of a snake — not sure where the goat's got to, probably off making bezoars, it'll be along soon enough." He retied the tie and looked up. "How's that? Have I introduced myself, _no,_ hello! I'm Snooky Young — _Snooky Young?_ Harry Brown. _Potter._ And—" fast rewind to Hogwarts Express, argument overheard through open cabin door _re_ prospects of Puddlemere United, _'I don't care if' —_ "_you_ are Quidditch Captain Flint!" He stared up at the Captain with intense interest. "I think this school unreasonably subordinates quidditch to academics, what say you?"

Flint's head bucked slightly as his brain did an abrupt 180. "You've got _that_ right!"

Locate commentary on current team standings in latest issue of _Quidditch Now* (*incorporating Quidditch!_) while performing final cinch of knot in tie. "How do you rate the prospects of United _v._ Falcons now that Rusty's out?"

"What, with Tarquin? I wouldn't put a knut on 'em."

"Should have gone with Ben David, eh?"

"Exactly!" said the fully-animated Flint. "I keep saying that, but nobody listens to me. Now there's a half-blood I'd play with...I hope Rough Hill appreciates him."

"Potter! Over here," called another familiar voice.

No, Potter over _here_, surely — _didn't I just tell you no silly cracks?_ No, that was me, actually. _Oh, sorry. _"Ah — prefectural diversion, must dash," said the Potter, "but remember, there is another side of the pond in play, so consider what might happen with a certain free agent from Fitchburg!"

He leaped away from the odds-recalculating Flint and vaulted an empty chair toward the prefect called Beaconsfield, who was lounging on a couch before the fireplace, _what a magnificent mantelpiece_, and was equipped with a box of biscuits and a handful of...minions? No, too intelligent looking. Sycophants? No, too independent looking. The Potter rounded another couch, this one occupied by a girl, _who's she_, saw her sorted, _Pansy Parkinson_, and she had a small black cat on her lap rumbling under an indulgent hand.

_Pets,_ that's what the Beaconsfield had. There were worse things to have. He even had a couple of friends, which was a good sign. Also a puzzle magazine.

"What do you make of this one, Potter?" said the Beaconsfield, adjusting his glasses. "_A mangled waiter, upon reflection._ Seven letters."

"Assizer," said the Potter unthinkingly, "but whoever did that one should be ashamed. —Excuse me a moment, I'm strangely compelled by your mantelpiece." He went over and leaned against it.

Oh yes, this feels like Old Home Week...fits the shoulder _properly_, this mantelpiece. Well, almost. Okay, _doesn't_ fit, not at all, really, _very_ wrong, this mantelpiece. _Someone's been misusing the power of this mantelpiece, I can tell, someone's been leaning here watching this room, looking for the right wrong people..._

The Beaconsfield frowned at his puzzle page. "Oh, good grief. Spelled with a eight, mirrored mangled pun, A - S - I - Z - A — you're right, that's rubbish." He pitchwhirled the magazine into the fire, wherein which it exploded in a brief rainbow-coloured sparkstorm.

"That was mine!" exclaimed a small Slytherin.

"Here's a sickle, get a better one," advised the sickle-tossing Beaconsfield, and raised his voice one decibel. "Will someone who wants to be on my good side kindly fetch the tea service? And someone else fetch Malfoy?" He picked up a book — _Plunkitt Of Tammany Hall _— from the lampèd table next to him and opened it to a bookmark. "Nice to see you sneak in, Potter. The password's _swordfish_ until the 14th, by the way."

"Really?" said the Potter, lifting his glasses to look across the room. "They change quite frequently upstairs."

"Yes, but we're obnoxious and disliked. Nobody ever even _tries_ to break in, a shame, we're quite cute really. Well, their loss..."

"Is that a snake tank over there, Mr Beaconsfield?" said the Potter.

"Of course. That's our mascot, Salazar Junior."

The Potter bounded across the room and looked down upon the resident of the tank, who was shiny red and green and eight feet long. "Aren't you a beauty!" he said.

_~(Oh, no, not milking time again.)~_

_"No, just came to say hello. Hello, Salazar! Are you terribly poisonous?"_

_~(Of course: I'm a jester cobra. But my name's not Salazar.)~_

The Beaconsfield's pocket watch chimed the quarter-hour, and in response he picked a small silver bell up from the table and rang it. Various people scattered across the room got up and started moving furniture about, deploying chess boards.

The Potter bounded back across the room. "She says her name is Louise." _Cobra, colubra..._

"Oh, are you a parselmouth, then?" said the Beaconsfield, turning a page. "That's good, we've been looking for the heir of Slytherin for ages."

A disgruntled Malfoy, clutching a finger-placemarked copy of _Magical Draughts and Potions_, emerged from a stairwell, prodded upward by, presumably, someone who wanted to be on the Beaconsfield's good side. The Malfoy shot the Beaconsfield a surly glare.

"Oh, buck up, Malfoy," said the Beaconsfield, still focused on his book. "I won't even be here next year. Your opponent's arrived."

The glare shifted target to the Potter — the Potter mouthed _Sorry_ — and reformulated itself into a more vague sour look.

"Let the games begin!" said the Beaconsfield. "Audience members please bear in mind, this is _not_ a gambling hall. —Anyone _wishing_ to place wagers, kindly see me."

#

_Plap plap plap._

There was a problem with being eleven, and it was that you couldn't stomp properly. You did your best, you put your heart into it, and it just came out _plap, _because when you weighed 39 kg it didn't matter what your heart was in, it mattered what your foot was in, and what your foot was in was a trainer. Rubber sole.

Up to the portrait of Mme. du Mont went the Potter, _plap plap plap_.

"_Grumble grumble dirxy rexabrats_ oh hello, 'mentis aciem' isn't it? thank you, _grumble grumble_..."

"Where have _you_ been?" said the Granger as he climbed through the portal. "It's past nine. And what's wrong?"

"Slytherin common room," he said, heading for the Granger and the Weasley and the Longbottom, "and I'm sulking because I just lost fifteen packets of Chocolate Frogs to Draco Malfoy at wizard chess. And please don't interrupt, I like a good sulk." They'd saved him a chair, which he threw himself into with enthusiasm._ Oh, the Weasley's playing wizard chess with the Longbottom, that's good._

"_Fifteen_ packets?" said the Weasley.

"I've only lost two!" said the Longbottom.

"Yes — not _quite_ sure how I managed that, the last bet was double or nothing..." The Potter folded his arms and beetled his brow. _Where am I going to get fifteen packets of Chocolate Frogs in school?_ Hospital wing gift shop? _Not at those prices, half a galleon for a sugar quill?_ Outrageous!

* * *

_"You don't sacrifice knights for pawns!" said the Malfoy._

_"I don't?" Of course I do, it's what they're _for_._

_Good player, Malfoy, very good player, didn't enjoy his first win _at all_. Even the second he greeted with a strange paranoia. Well, third time's the charm, which is good cos I'd hate to have to lose _four_ times._

* * *

"And _then_ I lost at ping-pong! Fortunately I never play ping-pong for candy." He looked around the room. "Incidentally, has anyone got a tent I can borrow? I can't sulk properly without a tent."

No one did. _Godric Gryffindor, not one of you brought a tent? That's like Ravenclaw forgetting their pencils. Major Grubbly-Plank would be very disappointed in you._

"No? All right then, I'll just pout," he said, and started to undo his tie."—How about grey-market Chocolate Frogs, any suggestions on that?"

"Fred and George," said half a dozen people, pointing at the stairs that led to the third-year dormitory.

"Thank you so much," said the Potter, and bounced out of his chair. "One more thing, is anyone making book on quidditch? I want to put a sickle on Puddlemere United."

"Are you insane?" said a-57%-probability-of-being-Quidditch-Captain-Wood. "They don't stand a chance against the Falcons with Rusty out."

"It'll be a sad day I don't bet on lost causes," said the Potter, rubbing his hands together. "Anyone want to take me up?"

"_I_ would," said 58% probability, "but I'd never take advantage of a fellow Gryffindor."

The Potter waggled his half-green-and-silver tie.

"Oh," said 59% briskly, "well, that's all right, then. One'll get you twelve, but it _won't_, and let that be a lesson to you."

"Done!" said the Potter, pulling off the tie and heading for the third-year staircase. "And by the way, you should take note of who's parted company with the Fitchburg Finches."

He began his ascent just as 60% said "Wait, what?"

Climb climb _pout_ climb climb _pout — _("Hey, come back here!") — _hello, what's this?_

"Do I hear music, young Fred?" said the Potter, emerging into the dormitory.

"Young?" said Fred, looking up from a partially disassembled carved wooden box on a table. The box seemed to be singing something about a cauldron of burning love. "Compared to who?"

"It's your baby face," said George, and pinched his own cheek.

"Ow!"

"I'll explain later," said the Potter. "Is that a radio?"

"Wizard wireless," said Fred. "Lee found a broken one in a skip yesterday and we just got it working."

"Only gets one station," said George.

"But then there's only one station to get."

"So it all works out in the end."

"Hmm," said the Potter. That's right, Fred and George do their research...

* * *

_"Don't rush off, Potter," said the Beaconsfield. "A rout so spectacular merits special notice."_

* * *

"Hmm what?"

"Well, first things first, I'm told you're the go-to for candies that fell off the back of a broom..."

"Certainly not!" said Fred, scandalized.

"We provide no such things!" said George, shocked, _shocked!_

"Until after this weekend."

"What do you need?"

"Chocolate Frogs," said the Potter, reaching into his pocket, "_but_ if you're as handy as the singing sorceress would indicate—"

* * *

_"You lost today* _(*for a given value of lose)_," proclaimed the Beaconsfield, "three out of three, and just to make sure you don't like it we have a special humili— er, _award_ for that sort of thing..."_

* * *

"Slytherin prefect gave me this," said the Potter, displaying a wad of deep green. "It's good, but it needs one little modification."

#

Down the stairs went the Potter, _bounce, bounce, bounce, _retying his tie red and gold side out once more_._

He returned to his chair, where, before sitting, he paused to beam upon the Granger and the Weasley and the Longbottom.

They looked up at him from across the table.

They continued to look up at him from across the table.

Said the Granger, "What in the name of Merlin's cotton Y-fronts have you got on your _head?_"

_...whirl whirl whirl..._

"What's it look like?" said the beatific Potter. "It's the Slytherin Beanie of Shame."

"It's got a _propeller_ on it...!"

"I _know!_"


	7. Getting The Hang Of Thursday

_"To qualify as a quack you have to claim to be a doctor."_  
— Theodore Sturgeon

#

**Getting The Hang Of Thursday.**

When the wand-alarm prodded him awake, the last thing in the Potter's mind from the previous night was still fresh, the question he'd posed: _What's it like not-being-you, Harry?_

The first thing in his mind was even fresher, and the answer was: "_During the day it's like you're a dream I'm having. And then at night I wake up just long enough to say hello. And then things get complicated. Look, do you mind if I clean up in here? It really is a mess."_

He sat up in bed and stilled the alarm, and then rubbed his provisional hands together in the darkness. Warm and slightly callused.

_Do as you think best, Harry._

_ How could I not be safe in hands like these?_

#

_"Good_ morning Mrs Norris, and how are you?" said the Potter.

Mrs Norris glared up at him.

He looked down at her politely. "Come to that, how's Mr Norris and all the little Norrises?"

Glare.

"Oh, there is no Mr Norris? I hope he didn't run afoul of a Ford Popular, I hate irony."

_Glare._

"He left you for a younger cat?"

**Glare.**

"A younger _ferret_? Shame on Mr Norris!

"—Look, if you don't talk you can't blame me for holding up both ends of the conversation. _How are you?_ Simple question. We're clearly not friends, I wouldn't presume, but we needn't be enemies."

Mrs Norris sat back and looked down before looking up again.

_=(Sad.)=_

"Because you miss Mr Filch?"

_=(Why else?)=_

_Good, that makes you worthwhile. _"And nobody's bothered to tell you what's going on with him in hospital, have they? No, of course they haven't. He's a squib, he couldn't _possibly_ have a _familiar_." He adjusted his beanie and flicked its prop to life. "Not to worry, I'll apply questions for you where needed. But now, let us away! I have a destiny with dirt."

#

In the 1943 MGM musical _Thousands Cheer_, Gene Kelly briefly danced with a mop.

Did he dance the _tango_ with said mop?

He did not.

And so it was left to the Potter to push back the bounds of terpsichory. It was a burden he accepted with both grace and the near-total absence thereof. Mrs Norris thought he was a loony but that was all right, Gene Kelly also danced with _mice_, terpsichory-dickory-_dock_, imagine her reaction to _that_.

_(Look at all this dust. This is _magic _dust! Given that dust is mostly skin cells, there should be a whole subsection of Defence Against The Dark Arts devoted to custodial work! Forget fingernails, J. Random Darklord could control all Hogwarts with the contents of this mop!)_

"Have you noticed, Mrs Norris," he said, while waiting for the tap-worthy floor to dry, "that this school has far too many rooms?"

_=(For what?)=_

"I counted 28 doors on this floor, and yeah, okay, some of them are fake but some of the walls are actually doors, so it evens out, and basically you could fit the whole school population into this floor alone — but they use _every single floor_ plus the dungeons. All these candles, fireplace-lighting...pulling quills out of the ceiling...what do you think, Mrs Norris? Does it make sense?"

_=(Humans don't _do _sense.)=_

"I wonder if some past headmaster enrolled all the portraits as students?" he mused. "Some sort of subsidy scam...if they let everybody out of the portraits they'd _need_ all this space — oh hello, what's this?"

Along the entire length of the corridor, a yard below the ceiling but still above normal viewing range, was engraved a motto in Latin:

_QUOD EST INFERIUS EST SICUT QUOD EST SUPERIUS ET QUOD EST SUPERIUS EST SICUT QUOD EST INFERIUS AD PERPETRANDA MIRACULA REI UNIUS_

"As above, so below," translated the Potter, "and vice versa, to bring about the miracle of Thing One. Very famous magical principle, that.

"Holographic universe, whole sort of general mishmash, however you phrase it, the part reflects the whole. Which would therefore mean that, at least in terms of magical thinking, the whole universe is crammed into this corridor." He looked up and down the corridor. "Well, it _is_ dark and mostly empty..."

There was a statue four doors down from where he was. He went and had a look at it. It was of a lost-looking wizard. So, immediate failure there — he wasn't a wizard, or a statue, and knew perfectly well where he was; it was everything _else_ that was lost.

The base of the statue had an inscription: _Boris the Bewildered_. Boris looked bothered. Perhaps he'd been bewitched. That might explain why he was wearing his gloves on the wrong hands.

"Hello, Boris!" said the Potter. "You don't talk, by any chance? No? If I had a non-orientable wormhole I could fix the chirality of your gloves — no, strike that, they'd explode when you put them on, bit counterproductive that solution, anyway I haven't got a wormhole. _M_aybe you should just pull them inside out? No, they're already inside out..."

Oh, wait. An _inside-out_ as-above-so-below correspondence would mean that a lost-looking wizard with gloves on actually _did_ refer to a non-lost non-wizard wearing callused hands.

That was a bit..._literary_, wasn't it?

Maybe that was it _— _the universe was being _literary_ at him. Perhaps Boris was bewildered as in Thornton _Wilder _(17 April 1897 – 7 December 1975)!

_That's it! this is all an adaptation of __Our Town__! __I'm dead! also a girl!__ and I've returned to Earth to relive my 12th birthday_ _in the body of Harry Potter!_ It all fits! _No, no, wait, doesn't work — I don't know when my birthday is._

Come to that there was no point in trying literary analysis, you never really _resolved_ anything with it, people were still arguing about motivations in _Hamlet_ just because _somebody_ had combined two divergent revisions of the script...

It was probably best to just keep one's eyes open.

#

There didn't seem to be any reason not to move on to doing the fourth floor, so he did exactly that.

This floor wasn't quite so well lit, candle-wise, and had patches and pools of darkness here and there; some of these were broken up by the light of the moon through windows, others were not, and could have been quite scary if not for the fact that this was Hogwarts and could therefore _safely_ be assumed to be absolutely jam-packed with lurking monsters. Having made that assumption he was logically in no danger, and proceeded through the dark areas without concern, verifying with Mrs Norris that he was doing a proper job on them.

And then, about halfway through the job, he come to a door that was not a door — not the _trompe l'oeil_ kind, either, the _because-it's-a-jar_ kind. And he was Tempted. His presumed jurisdiction was limited to the hallway, but it would be nice to get a look inside a probably enormously dangerous darkened mystery classroom...

...but no, it wasn't his body.

He just pulled the door shut until it latched and moved on.

Ten seconds later the door opened decisively behind him.

He whirled around in a rather complicated motion that involved stumbling backward over his bucket (even though it had originally been behind him and he'd turned around) and which terminated with him on the floor supine (or is it prone_? no, from _supinus _bent or thrown backward_), bottom jammed into the bucket and dirty water rushing up his back and down the hallway.

He awarded himself fifty Potter Points for style, debited sixty for _yuck_, decided he didn't feel like ending up with a negative score and awarded twenty because he'd managed to keep his hat on.

Not to say he was scared. Was he scared? Of course not, he'd noticed perfectly well that Mrs Norris wasn't scared. _Then why the splashy pirouette?_ Ah, well! — _startled_, yes, he _was_ startled, no reason not to be startled...perfectly reasonable being startled upon having doors opened at you (_away from you_) yes, _thank_ you, point taken, _honestly_, in the dark of the night...

A tall figure moved out of the darkness.

There was a flash of glass in the moonlight.

A flash of glasses, in fact, half-moon and gold-rimmed.

"Good morning, Mr Potter," said Professor Dumbledore (for it was he).

The Potter ventured a tiny wave. _Hello_, he mouthed.

"Dear me," said the Headmaster, peering down at him. "Is that the Slytherin Beanie of Shame? I haven't seen that in use since they retired my classroom in...1953, I believe." The Headmaster reached down and with a firm hand pulled him up and out with a _shluck_. "With, I perceive, an intriguing aesthetic modification. Well done, Harry." A hand moved through the air and the dirty water vanished from its various improper places before appearing in the self-righteous bucket.

Use voice now? _Yes._ "Thank you, Professor!"

Thoughtful micropause from the Headmaster. "At this hour of night and both of us doing the school's business? Professor seems too formal. I have so many middle names pining for lack of use — I think, perhaps, _Brian_ might do?" Behind the glasses there was an obscure twinkle, if such was not self-contradictory. "Merely one notch above the surname, suitable for some student use."

"Well, thank you very much then, Brian!" said the Potter, momentarily doffing his cap. "—Speaking of school business, how is Mr Filch? Mrs Norris is concerned."

"He is still in St Mungo's Hospital, doing well but providing endless fascination to Healer Litehus. Every time they fix something they find something else wrong with him. Lurgi, pink toenails, spon plague — at last report they suspected gobberwarts, but that seems improbable to me; I would venture a knut on misdiagnosed nadgers. We hope to have him back by Monday." The headmaster pointed his crooked nose toward the cat. "Perhaps I should take her to visit him?"

Mrs Norris glared up at him with surly gratitude.

"I shall go make arrangements, then. Unless there are any other matters requiring my professional attention?"

"Ah," said the Potter. "Well. In regards to Mr Filch and his particular circumstances — I was wondering — while I have considerable respect for, shall we say, _traditional_ methods of clettering — in the muggle world there is a device called a _rotary floor polisher_..."

#

After waiting for the Dumbledore to depart the area, the Potter returned to the magical mystery door whence the professor had emerged. In somewhat eroded gold lettering, it bore the legend TRANSFIGURATION on its frosted glass.

Hmm.

He turned away from the door, and found that he was being watched by a portrait on the opposite wall.

This one was a black-haired girl, and he had to squint to make out her name on the traditional small metal plate.

"Well, hello there, Katerina," said the Potter, "and what do you suppose our headmaster was up to in there?"

She just smiled and pressed index finger to lips.

The Potter frowned as a world bubbled up in his head.

_Spoilers?_

In a sudden grump, he abandoned the fourth floor half done.

And the world went about its business.

#

Transfiguration was apparently the word of the day, for this was also the first day of that class.

The Longbottom was not looking forward to it, and had doured and gloomed about it almost from the moment he woke up to the moment they all walked into the classroom, and past the latter. (At least he'd gotten a good night's sleep, punctuated with the occasional pizza-induced murmuring hiccup of "_Abbondanza...!_")

"It's Gran's big thing," he said (again) from his position behind the desk to the Potter's left (the Weasley of course being the Potter's right hand man) (the Granger was sitting in front of him, and really wanted to be sitting at the foot of the teacher's desk). "If you can't do Transfiguration you're just nothing."

"That must be why we have Transfiguration once a week but Herbology three times," said the Potter. "Think how important it would be if we didn't take it at all!"

"..." said the Longbottom.

There were two doors to the Transfiguration classroom, one to the hall, one presumably to a teacher prep area; c_lock clock clock_ came footsteps from beyond the latter door, which opened of its own accord in advance of the McGonagall, and closed behind her with a sigh, possibly of relief.

"Good morning," said the McGonagall, taking a standing position twixt desk and blackboard and setting a white mug on the desk. The mug did not have a humourous statement on it. "This is Transfiguration, the most difficult, complex, dangerous and frankly irritating subject in magic.

"There is no room for messing about in this course; even making significant inroads requires total concentration, and if you cannot provide it —" her roving glance inexplicably slowed on the Potter — "you _will_ leave the class, one way or another. Hence I will take roll at the end of the period rather than now.

"Those of you who know your own minds and wish to take this opportunity to make your exit an honorable one may now do so." She drew her wand and with an oblique gesture produced a small silvery cat, which took up a waiting position at the hallway door. "You will be escorted to the Headmaster's office, and assigned to a fallback class."

Four heartbeats later, the Longbottom abruptly stood up and began to make his way over to the door; there was a pair of snickers from the Slytherin section of the room.

"Ten points to Gryffindor, Mr Longbottom," said the professor, and then directed her gaze toward the origin of the amusement. "_I_ will not be taking points from Slytherin today."

There was a sudden dampening of jollity from the Slytherin section as the implication settled in.

"Will there be anyone else?"

The Malfoy's minions, Crabbe and Goyle, packed up and joined the Longbottom. He didn't look terribly happy about it.

The McGonagall nodded gravely. "Twenty points to Slytherin." She waited, but there were no further withdrawals.

The silvery cat pushed the hallway door open and led the three outside.

"Quills out, please," said the McGonagall. "There will be many boring notes taken today.

"There _was_ an excellent introductory discussion of our subject in the previous edition of the _Magical Theory_ coursebook; unfortunately the current one apparently needed the space for additional bad woodcut illustrations.

"Broadly, transfiguration can be analogized to sculpture. Hard-form sculptors, like those who work in granite, study raw blocks of matter and attempt to reveal the forms concealed within. If there is a hole in the object, there is a hole in the subject. Soft-form sculptors, like those who work in clay, have more control in that they can break and heal at whim, though of course once the piece goes into the fire matters are out of their hands, and if the artist is inadequate to the task the result will at best require a pot-healer.

"Transfigurational magic can persuade or force, and you must know which technique to apply.

"Here is a _proper_ illustration."

She reached into one of the desk drawers and pulled out a glass cylinder labeled _Tesco Everyday Value Coffee Granules, _followed by a cardboard box of sugar cubes. She unscrewed the the cylinder's lid and measured some of its contents into the mug by dead reckoning; when she re-capped it, the container was no less full. From the cardboard box she shook six cubes, probably not reducing its contents either.

She directed the tip of her wand to the mug and filled it halfway with hot water, followed by milk.

And then, with a complex and/or compound gesture, she changed her desk into a pig. The mug became a donut. The coffee ran all over the pig and the donut rolled off its back. The pig ate the donut.

With another gesture, in some respects a reversed one, the pig changed back into a desk and the spilled coffee disappeared; finally the McGonagall opened a drawer to retrieve her (clean) mug, which she set on the desktop.

"Which techniques did I use? —Miss Granger?"

The Granger lowered her hand. "Conjuration for the hot water, multiplicative transfiguration for the coffee and sugar, summoning for the milk, switching and untransfiguration to make and unmake the pig and donut, and finally vanishing to return the coffee, sugar and water into nonbeing, plus scourgio to clean up the spilled milk."

The McGonagall gave a mildly pleased nod. "Ten points to you, Miss Granger, to use as you see fit.

"Conjuration and vanishment are nicely symmetrical. Switching — or transformative transfiguration when it's not at home — and untransfiguration are much the same. Alas, we then run up against all the exceptions.

"It was twenty years ago today that a smart first-year named Eli Solomon raised his hand in this class and said to me, _Professor, if we can conjure _light_, we should be able to transform it into anything; it's called mass-energy equivalence._ And he _should_ have been correct. As it is, I had to summon the milk because we can't conjure foodstuffs either from the void or from light. We can't produce the Hogwarts Christmas turkey dinner, though we do stretch the leftovers straight through until June. The pig you just saw would never yield a bacon sandwich that didn't give you fatal splinters and worse.

"Why? We don't know. If you ask the tea leaves you may get messages like_ that is beyond you, such is not permitted, _or_ you have not the privilege._

"In any case, we'll begin with the parts that do make sense." She began to write on the blackboard — from a distance, with her wand; there was neither chalk nor eraser, and so the Potter gave up his hope of being named blackboard monitor. "Our first polysyllabic phrase of the day is _conceptual homeomorphism_. If you wish to transfigure a raven into a writing desk, it is necessary to understand how they are alike. As someone once said, all islands are connected under the sea..."

#

Towards the middle of class the professor distributed matchsticks, the purpose of which was to be transformed into pins.

The Potter took two, concealing one of them in his palm.

Along with the rest of the class he went through the motions toward the stated goal; he was scrupulous in his demonstration of the wand mechanics to Harry's body, but by virtue of not being a wizard his performed gestures yielded as little result as those of Neville Longbottom (who of course wasn't actually there).

At the end, though, while the McGonagall was calling everyone's attention to the Granger's progress — Hermione's matchstick was indeed silvery and pointy — he had a little chat with Harry.

_Harry, why is a matchstick like a pin? _he thought, expecting in answer, if anything, something about the physical similarity.

_Because of the sharpness of the flame,_ replied Harry Potter.

He bore that poetic thought in mind when he Harried the matchstick in his palm.

He squinted down at the result.

It was neat as, and bright as, and — if pins were legal tender — would be sound money.

#

Come lunchtime the Gryffindor table found the Longbottom positively joyous. He was on the verge of bursting into song. In fact he was well past it, and in progress:

_Don't live like vegetarians _(sang the Longbottom)  
_on food they give to parrots,_  
_blow out yer kite from morn til night_  
_on boiled beef and carrots!_

"I know that song!" said the Weasley.

"One of the big hits of 1910 for Harry Champion," observed the Potter. "How do _either_ of you know it?"

Continued the Weasley, "My dad used to sing it for Fred and George cos it's got ginger twins in. Where'd you learn it, Nev?"

"Muggle Studies!" declared the Longbottom.

"Oh, is that where they put you when you...withdrew?" said the Granger, with only the slightest hint of disapproval.

"Yeah! It's brilliant! You remember the teacher from the first night who left the lanterns on in his vardo?"

"Kind of," said the Weasley. "The one with the porkpie hat and umbrella?"

"That's Doctor Vinovii! he teaches from the piano — he sings all these muggle songs and he has conversations with this muggle puppet called Moogie! and he went to America over the summer and got shot like six times and can't wait to go back!"

"Wow," said the Weasley. "Wonder if I could get in there?"

"Don't be like that," said the Granger. "Transfiguration is _useful._"

The Weasley shrugged.

#

And the Longbottom sang all the way through Herbology, too. He sang "If It Wasn't For The Houses In Between", he sang "I've Only Come Down For The Day", and when he eventually came around to "Boiled Beef And Carrots" again, he didn't even mind when the Potter started chipping in...

_Now we've got a lodger, he's an artful cove,  
I'm very, very sad, he said.  
We called for the Doctor, he came round,  
and told him to jump in bed.  
The poor chap said, I do feel bad,  
then Sophie with a tear replied,  
Said, What would you like for a pick-me-up?  
and he jumped out of bed and cried:  
Boiled beef and carrots, boiled beef and carrots!  
That's the stuff for your Darby Kell,  
it makes you fat and it keeps you well!  
Don't live like vegetarians,  
on food they give to parrots,  
blow out yer kite from morn til night,  
on boiled beef and carrots!_


	8. Regarding Laundry

_O joy! O fear! there is not one  
Of us can guess what may be done  
In the absence of the sun:-  
Come along!_

—Percy Bysshe Shelley.

#

**Regarding Laundry.**

_A sedan chair with doors? You've got a lot of weird rubbish in here, whoever you are..._

Well, see if any of it's got my name on, will you, Harry?

#

It was 5:42 AM at Hogwarts and the Potter was caught in a paradox on the third floor.

On the one hand there was a KEEP OUT sign hanging over the Forbidden Corridor, which meant PLEASE INVESTIGATE IMMEDIATELY as far as he was concerned. On the other hand, both hands belonged to H. J. Potter rather than _himself_ — along with assorted arms, legs, pineal gland and pancreas (what did a pancreas _do_, actually? whatever it liked, really, so long as it kept on doing it with no interference from _him_) and so _not risking harm to H. J. Potter_ balanced the demand from the KEEP OUT sign _exactly_, which is why he was mopping in circles and had been since 5:37.

Yes _no_ yes _no _yes yes _no no — _why must these things happen to me, _classic Buridan's Ass paradox_ (equidistant equal sized piles of hay, result: deadlocked donkey) (asses aren't donkeys, donkeys are domesticated) (_in any case I don't want to be a donkey _or _an ass, thank you_) (and incidentally, it produces insulin, glucagon, somatostatin, and pancreatic polypeptide, in case you still cared) (I'd rather be a _pony!_) (glucagon sounds like a spelling error, but isn't, and is secreted by the islets of Langerhans) ((Latitude 38° 54' N, longitude 77° 00' 13" W?)) (_Godric Gryffindor, what are you going on about _now?) (I'd be _20% cooler_ if I were a _pony animagus!_) — _arrgh!_ _Got to break deadlock, use a side issue, half of fourth floor still unmopped, stairwell is nearer _now, _make a break for it!_

He made a break for it.

Coo! that was a relief.

It had actually been worse than the similar incident on the second floor, with the sound of crying from the bathroom. On the one hand, _crying_, on the other hand the shoe-bearing nature of the helpful graphic on that particular bathroom door. He wasn't about to invade the ladies loo — not with Mrs Norris watching, anyway. Then again, she might have been willing to supervise... Fortunately it had stopped as soon as he knocked on the door, and did not begin again.

#

He scrubbed his way down the hallway, pausing to doff his cap to a portrait of Ruprecht von Mumpitz and a statue of Vetruvio the Architect. (The portrait responded in kind, the statue didn't.) Tomorrow he'd do the first and ground floors, and Sunday it would be dungeon time. He was looking forward to that, the kitchens were down there, and he wanted to meet some of those house elves —

— _and what have we here?_

It was a jar, again.

TRANSFIGURATION said the inscription on the window.

"Well!" said the Potter. "Isn't this interesting? _I_ think it's interesting. How about you, Mrs Norris, do you think it's interesting? Every door on every floor tightly shut but one, _and_ the same one again." He leaned into the opened crack. "Hello!" he called. "Are you in there, Brian?"

Silence.

"What do you think?" he said to Mrs Norris. "Think he's in there but damaged?"

Mrs Norris expressed skepticism.

The Potter drummed fingers on his mop handle.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is...the charm. _Albus Dumbledore, what are you up to?_ Are you careless? Or just a fan of _Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, _and want to see what H. Potter does when presented with a tempty mystering? Dare we look inside for the fizzy lifting drinks or should we just file a request-for-maintenance form regarding the defective latch?

Ah well, _carpe diem_.

He pushed the door wide, revealing darkness within. It went _squee_.

"See any unconscious Dumbledores in there, Mrs Norris?"

Mrs Norris did not.

"Right, then — going to use the wand. _Not_ using it to tidy up, please note." He Harried a _lumos_ and shone the light inside.

Something flashed blindingly back at him.

When the sparkly floating magenta afterimages had faded (_Laserium eat __your heart out!)_ he found Mrs Norris gone from the hallway...

...and inside the room, judging by the direction of the purring. Mrs Norris, purring? Now _that_ merits investigation!

He stepped inside, wand pointed floorward. There was, as he surmised, a mirror up against the far wall, and there was a Mrs Norris, indeed _the_ Mrs Norris, up against the mirror, rubbing against it enthusiastically.

_Strange,_ thought the Potter_. I love a mirror, but rarely for its own qualities — sterling though they may be._ He waited. _Get it? Sterling? Silver? Hello, are we awake in here? Or do you think it's a tin-mercury alloy? Oh, I just don't know sometimes..._

He advanced into the room, shining the light around at long unused desks and chairs. There was a desk with an upturned wastebasket on top of it, and in a world where you could Vanish your rubbish into Non-Being how much sense did _that_ make? Maybe it was a recycle bin.

The dusty floor showed signs of activity: fresh shoe-print trails leading to and from the mirror. Or rather mirrors, for there were two. The second one hadn't reflected due to a large sheet of parchment pasted over its face. The sheet had DO NOT REMOVE WITHOUT APPROVAL FROM THE HEADMASTER written on it in very faded ink.

Mrs Norris was now sitting in front of the other one, looking up at the Potter's reflection with an unusual degree of affection.

He leaned in and looked at himself, or, technically, H. J. Potter with red hair and a happily inquisitive look. Nothing unusual there. He stuck his tongue out. Nothing unusual there either.

He looked down at the rumbling Mrs Norris. Well, this _was_ Hogwarts — perhaps it was a catnip mirror.

_Or, more probably — _he raised the glowing tip of the wand to examine the mirror's frame — _some form of _magic _mirror —_

_Bong_ went the great Clock Tower bell.

Ah.

_Bong._

Pity.

Seven o'clock — he could _bong_ tell because they _bong_ silenced the main bell _bong_ from midnight to _bong_ six — had arrived.

_Bong,_ concluded the Clock Tower bell.

"Well!" said the Potter, lowering the wand. "I'd love to stay and investigate, but — things to do, people to see, bananas to slice onto cornflakes. Come along, Mrs Norris!"

She ignored him.

"Well, I can't force you. Except that I could, but you'd bite me, and we can't have that.

"I'll just leave the door open a crack for you, shall I?"

Apparently he should, and so he did.

#

After a quick run up to the owlery to post a note to the headmaster to tell him about a stuck cat behind an unstuck door — he couldn't bring himself to sign it _Harry_, and settled for _Acting Sub-Assistant Janitor Potter_ — he returned to the dormitory to change clothes for the day.

Hogwarts had a convenient laundry service. It consisted of leaving things under your bed at night and finding them laid out on top of your trunk in the morning, cleaned and pressed and with razor-sharp creases in everything, including things you wouldn't expect to take a razor-sharp crease and which were quite difficult to put on as a result.

He had wondered briefly what would happen if he _slept_ under the bed, but decided it was probably unwise to try.

Not that it would have gotten him anything other than clean, and that was well taken care of already. Within days of his post-Herbology experiment, scourgifying first-years had become something of a game-shaped craze among the older students, with points awarded according to how well the job was done (did you get under all their nails? did you leave them with a fresh lemony scent?) and deducted for things like accidentally taking off buttons and zipper pull-tabs. (The Hufflepuffs were winning conclusively.)

Who did the laundry? House elves.

_Really want to meet the house elves, _thought the Potter, sliding a foot into an envelope-like sock.

#

"Light and fluffy pancakes again?" said the Potter come breakfast-time. "This isn't right."

"So what would you rather have?" said the Weasley, taking one and dunking it in a bowl of syrup to the considerable disgust of the Granger.

"I don't know, some _proper magical_ _breakfast_, like — cauldron bubble and squeak...?"

_Tap tap tap_ on the table went the wand of Percy the Prefect.

"Minor social note," said he. "As you _do_ know, we have an exchange student this year. As you _would_ know if anyone paid attention to the notices I post on the common room bulletin board, in return for said student, the school gave up Sarah Jane Murray, seventh year Ravenclaw."

Several of the older boys sighed.

"_Steady,_ gentlemen. Our Miss Murray is now at the California Institute of Magic—"

"_And_ mayhem!" said Fred and George.

"Trust you two to know about _that_ sort of thing," exhaled their brother. "Anyway, Ravenclaw's putting together a care-package for her — apparently you can't get decent crisps in America — and since she's representing us all, we're all going to participate. There will be a box for donations in the common room; please include only foodstuffs of which magical Britain is proud."

"Ksinski's Musical Popcorn!" said the Longbottom.

"_Excellent_ suggestion, young man."

"Where _is_ the California Institute of Magic?" asked the Granger. "Other than California, I mean. I've never heard of it before."

"It's located near a town called Yreka, which is twin-city to Hogsmeade. —That out of the way, I've got your latest schedule updates. They're still sorting out a broomstick issue — apparently they were stored incorrectly over the summer and several escaped — so the start of flying lessons has been pushed off to next week.

"Firsties, as some of you have doubtless worked out by the process of elimination, Potions class begins today — double-length, with Professor Snape, in the dungeons. Which is not a Cluedo outcome, incidentally. It's chilly down there, so if you've got jumpers apply them as necessary."

While Percy was speaking, the morning mail service was arriving in the form of dozens of owls, landing on the tables and getting feathers in the butter (_that's tradition, I can tell,_ thought the Potter) and dropping off letters and small packages.

And then, quite unexpectedly, a letter-bearing falcon zoomed through the fluttering owls like a jet through biplanes and plunked itself down in front of him, landing with such grace that hardly anyone's orange juice was knocked over.

"I've got mail!" said the Potter, setting his untouched orange juice in front of the dampened Longbottom with one hand while accepting the offered envelope with the other. It was addressed simply _"To Harry"_ — five Potter Points to that falcon. He tore it open with his teeth.

"Who's that from?" said the Weasley.

"Hagrid!" announced the Potter. "Rubeus Hagrid, gamekeeper and grinder of the keys! Or something like that. Ooh, I've been invited round for tea this afternoon at three. Anyone want to come with?" He gave everyone from his dormitory (plus the Granger) an inquisitive look.

The Weasley and the Longbottom seemed interested. The Granger looked mildly surprised when he included her, but nodded.

"We've got a field booked," said Dean Thomas, looking at Seamus Finnegan.

"For what?" said the Weasley.

"I'm going to bring footy to Hogwarts," said the Thomas. "Seamus is going to help."

"It's so bizarre a game it just might go over," said the Finnegan.

While listening with 1.25 ears to the ensuing conversation, because footy, the Potter returned to his correspondence.

_P.S._, it said. _Dont know what your having for brekky but if you have any to spare Mordecai loves sardines._

He checked the table, but there were none.

"Pancake, Mordecai?" said the Potter. Mordecai did his best to give him the eyebrow raised, and accepted a bacon strip instead. The Potter drew a quill from his quill pocket to write his reply under the footnote.

_Thank you, yes, and I trust you won't mind a friend or three?_

"Going to minister to the savage, Potter?" drawled the Malfoy, who had snuck up behind him and was now dropping toast crumbs down the back of the Potter's neck.

"Have you never read _Tarzan Of The Apes_?" said the Potter, bending his head backwards to look at the Malfoy upside-down. "Savages are cool. Also very useful when you're being attacked by lions."

"Are you mad? He looks half-giant."

"Even better! Some lions are quite large!"

"There _are_ no lions in Scotland."

"Not any _more!_ See how useful he is?" He beamed up at the Malfoy.

The Malfoy stared down at him. "You're bonkers," he said, and bit into his remaining toast.

"Quite possibly! Want to come along? Meet the cryptids and bunyips and that?"

The Malfoy continued to stare down at him for a few heartbeats. "Thank you, no," he said, and wandered away.

The Weasley gave a disgusted snort. "Why do you put up with him?"

"He's not doing me any harm," said the Potter, closing up the letter and returning it to Mordecai.

After the falcon had flown away (knocking over hardly anyone's orange juice, and it was mostly empty anyway), the Potter didn't put his quill away; instead he took out his copy of _Magical Draughts and Potions_.

The Granger watched his next action while horror crawled up her face like pink-suited ninjas.

"_You're writing in your coursebook!_" she said.

"Of course I am," he said. "Nothing wrong with writing in books, so long as you do it sensibly..."

"_Why?_"

"Because I read the book, and someday somebody _else_ might."

#

Professor Snape took roll in alphabetical order, but upon arriving at the P's, he skipped over Potter, Harry and continued straight through to the end of the alphabet.

"Zabini, Blaise?"

"Here, sir."

There followed a significant pause.

"And the _celebrated_ Harry Potter," said the Professor.

"Present!" said the Potter. "Although to be honest, sir, fame is a vapor and popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion." _Oops. _"—Sorry, that came out a bit dark. I was aiming for Horace Greeley and got Mark Twain."

Professor Snape stared the Potter straight in the green and silver tie...

(_Oh, _look _at you,_ thought the Potter. _Those robes — not the _cool _black robes — you've got the kind that go grey with wear, and you don't even care, do you? Do you even have them laundered regularly? No, you don't, because you're not even _grooming _yourself. If you were a bird you'd be moulting all over the floor. But then you're not a bird, are you, because hope is the thing with feathers. And what a waste of nose, that's a _brilliant _nose, Sherlock Holmes would be _proud _of that nose...)_

...and then made a tick mark on his class sheet.

After a brief pause he stepped away from his desk to — apparently — tour the room, and began to recite with a peculiar mixture of boredom and dedication:

"This is Potions, a class unlike any other at Hogwarts.

"In this room a _glass rod_ shall be your wand.

"In this room you may use mortar and pestle to combine power and beauty — a centrifuge to separate death from glory — scales like these to weigh life itself.

"All these things you may do, all these things I can teach — provided I can dig the _cotton batting_ out of your _thick little heads_. I am _not_ an optimist.

"_Mr Potter._ What do we obtain if we add powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

The Potter rose slowly and brightly.

"Broadly speaking? A sedative called the Draught of Living Death." Although there were quite a few varieties of asphodel and the book didn't distinguish between any of them...

The Professor paused.

"I see no quills moving," he said.

Quills started moving, as did he.

"—Where might I obtain a bezoar?"

"Bezoar orientale or Bezoar occidentale? India is lovely this time of year, but Peru is nice, too — but no, you'd mean a garden variety, wouldn't you? So I'd try the gamekeeper's house, I believe he keeps goats. Unless there was one in that equipment cupboard over there. A bezoar, I mean, not a goat, although of course you never know, with magic."

"A bezoar," said the Professor, fixing a glare on the green and silver tie as though hoping to burn it red and gold, "may also be derived from the _poisonous tears_ shed by certain _stags_ who have fed upon _snakes_ to _regain their youth._

"What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

"Oh, now there's a thing," said the Potter. "I know they're the same _plant_, but this is magic, and to change the name is to change the thing. So I'm going to have to go with Don't Know, Sir on that one."

Another pause. The slightest flick of an eyelash suggested that the Professor had found something of interest in that.

"Distinguish between occulting argentum and occulting beryllium."

_Wow. _"No idea whatsoever, sorry, sir." Which was strictly a lie, but there was nothing in any of the coursebooks about either of those things.

"Occulting argentum is used in magic mirrors; occulting beryllium is used in time-turners; both are used in the pensieve." He flicked a glance around the classroom. "—You need not write that down; it is well above your level." He resumed staring at the Potter's tie. "_There is always someone who knows more than you, Mr Potter,_" he purred.

_Well, good,_ thought the Potter. _I'd hate to be alone in this._

The Professor took up the _Draughts and Potions_ book from his desk. "We will today create a notional cure for boils that by convenient happenstance involves the use of the majority of common laboratory equipment in its preparation. It is found on page — what is it, Potter?"

The Potter had had his hand up since the word "boils".

"No offense intended, sir, but did you approve this text? or was it a bureaucratic decision? Because it really is rubbish." _And_ one reason he felt sure that although H. J. Potter might feel that he was dreaming during the day, the world was real, because you didn't get cruddy coursebooks in people's fantasies. "It uses terms before they're defined, the glossary is a joke, the sidebars are generally irrelevant when not actively misleading and frankly it opens the school to lawsuits."

"Lawsuits, Mr Potter?" drawled the Potions Master.

"For example, the preparation of this boil cure involves the mixing of porcupine quills and snake venom in a cauldron under heat, but ten pages on from that it warns never to mix porcupine quills and snake venom under _high_ heat, though it doesn't say why or even define high heat. Disaster could ensue."

"Yours is not to question the decisions of the Ministry, Mr Potter," said Professor Snape, idly turning pages in the coursebook. "And in the future needless interruptions _will_ result in lost points.

"However," continued the Professor, "the muggleborns in the class will take note that high heat is _actively bubbling_."

_My goodness, half the class is muggleborns,_ thought the Potter dryly. He thought about raising the issue of air pressure, but decided not to push his luck.

#

It was a long three hours.

The Longbottom lost five points for Gryffindor for breaking the end off a glass alembic. The Granger didn't earn any points at all, even though she finished her potion first and correctly, which drove her pink with irritation. But nobody died or even exploded, so that was all right. (And the Malfoy earned five points for Slytherin due to his expertise with stewing slugs —had someone spent time teaching him to cook? it was possible. Of course, that still left a ten-point gap in Gryffindor's favor, since somehow Slytherin had lost twenty points Thursday...)

Eventually the great bell tolled the end of the period, and, after receiving the peculiar homework assignment of identifying five conspicuous errors in the coursebook, the class began to stream into the hallway with varying degrees of wild enthusiasm.

"Mr Potter will remain," said the teacher, and sorted through papers on his desk in a desultory manner until the classroom was as empty as it was going to get.

And then finally, _finally_ he looked the Potter in the eye.

_Ooh, gravity well...! You are my favourite teacher. You're going to be _difficult_._

"I will have one thing clearly understood," said the Potions Master. "I do not tolerate pyrotechnics, spectacle or _showing off_ in any form. In this classroom, _I am the master, and you will obey me._"

"Wouldn't have it any other way, sir," said the Potter, unobtrusively shaking some toast crumbs from inside his razor-creased trouser leg onto the floor.

"Good. Do not let me detain you."

#

"I think Professor Snape hates me," said the lunching Longbottom, depositing pickled celery on a gloomy hot dog.

"Yeah, probably," said the Weasley, drenching his own in buffalo-wing sauce. "Good for you!"

"I can't believe you said all that about the book!" said the Granger. "It's the _book_, Harry!"

"Yes, well," said the tie-retied Potter, contemplating a rubbery bun. Look, it _stretches_. "Never put up with bad coursebooks. School's going to interfere with your autodidacticism, so you should insist that it interfere constructively."

The Weasley bit fiercely into his hot dog bun. Its contents shot across the table and bounced off the Granger and disappeared under the table somewhere. She stared at him. He cheesed a grin back at her.

"_Did you know_," said Percy Weasley, raising a finger from behind a very dull book, "that the most common form of serotiny in pine trees is pyriscence, in which a resin binds the cones shut until melted by a forest fire?"

#

The Potter inexplicably lost to the Weasley at wizard chess at 2:42 PM, and when three o'clock rolled around, a party of four departed the back steps of the school for the Hagridal Hut.

It was going to be a tricky meeting, of course: Hagrid had met Harry, spent some time with him — had some sort of feel for how he behaved.

The Potter decided that if he drew suspicion he'd blame it on the radishes at lunch, because there hadn't been any. That should confuse the issue; it certainly confused him.

#

The Longbottom bounced backwards from the door, driven by a storm of barks and growls that erupted from behind it as soon as he knocked. The voice that responded to the storm was no less impressive. _"Back, Fang — sit! Good boy."_

After Fang had settled him, her or itself, the door opened, and the epic Hagrid overspilled the doorway.

"Harry!" said the epic Hagrid, looking down as though from a mountaintop, hand above eyes salute-like. "—_You're_ not Harry."

"No, I'm Neville Longbottom," admitted the Longbottom.

Hagrid looked from Neville to the equally black-haired Weasley, who shook his head.

"I swopped hair with Harry," said the Weasley. "Fun, innit? I'm Ron Weasley."

"Well, I suppose — Weasley, hey, I know yer brother Charlie — good lad, Charlie, loves his animals."

Hermione unexpectedly punched the Potter in the arm. "What?!" he said.

"You were going to say something I didn't like."

"Oh, was I? Well, all right..."

The epic Hagrid looked down — continued to look down — and blanched.

"By gar and by scrumbag, Harry," said the epic Hagrid. "With that hair yeh look _scary_ like yer mum..."

_Oh. Oho. Aha. Is _that _why...?_

"Come in, then!" said the epic. "Tea's on. Made scones. Think they're scones, anyway."

#

"Oh, look! Rock cakes!" said the Potter.

"Help yerself," said Hagrid, pouring tea with enormous care. Under his tea-cozy was a newspaper clipping about the attempted Gringott's break-in — the same article as in the Potter's only copy of the Daily Prophet. Interesting.

A Harry memory bobbled up. _Oh._ Hagrid had picked something up from Gringott's when he'd taken Harry around Diagon Alley...

"Um, Harry," said Hagrid, "don't wanna be rude, but — _Slytherin?_"

"Only half," said the Potter, waving his red and gold tie. "_And_ I've got an excuse." He ran through _l'affaire du_ Sorting Hat one more time.

"_Hufflepuff?_" said Hagrid. "Really? Thought I tol' yeh — well, no mind..."

The Potter took his tea. The scones were like rocks, and the rock cakes were some hitherto unknown form of matter beyond mere solid. _Never a Jammie Dodger around when you need one._ When Fang offered him a charcoal bikkie he took it gladly.

"Speaking of potential offense," said the Potter, "I want to ask you some questions about people. Parents — people they knew, a lot of social stuff..." _Wash your dirty laundry in public, it's embarrassing, but shame is so counterproductive..._ "_And_ this Lord Voldemort."

Hagrid spilled his tea. "We don' like sayin' that name," he said. "I tol' yeh that, but..."

"All right, then, we don't have to say that name, but I need to discuss him, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has too many syllables, so let's just respell him. Something like—" the letters rearranged themselves in his mind — "Trevor Doom, LL. D."

There was a pause. Even Fang stopped scratching himself.

"_Trevor the Evil Lawyer,_" said Neville slowly.

"A complete _barrister_," said Ron.

_The Barrister_, thought the Potter. Not bad...

"All righ'," said Hagrid reluctantly. "But I don' see what yeh need to know about him now, he's gone eleven years...even if maybe..."

"That's a telling _maybe_," said the Potter. "I've seen how this sort of thing works — the Barrister may have been splattered to the four walls, but then some minion swoops in and collects the the remains and _I_ end up dangling upside down over a box of instant-villain-just-add-blood, and I'd like to avoid that sort of thing."

Hagrid looked appalled. "Blimey," he said. "Shouldn' need to think about that. Dumbledore...great man, always two steps ahead..."

"Where did you get all _that_ from?" whispered the Weasley.

_"Scars Of Dracula_, Hammer Studios 1970," the Potter whispered back.

"You what?"

"I'll explain later."

#

It wasn't such a great way to start off, but Hagrid cheered up after Neville explained how Slytherin had lost twenty points for laughing at him. "And it was Harry who talked me into leaving Transfiguration," he said. "Smartest thing I did all week!"

"I did?" said the Potter.

"Yeah! —Hey, Hagrid, do you know a song called 'Bread And Marmalade'?"

He did, and oh, it took him back, too...!

So _that_ was all right.

#

"Trevor Doom, Barrister of Darkness," said Hermione on their way back to the castle. "_Honestly_, Harry!"

"We could call him Frau Blucher," said the Potter absently. A pony whinnied in the back of his mind.

"Why not just say _You Know Who_ like everybody else?"

"I don't think anybody _does_ know," said the Potter. _What does a dark lord think when he gets toast crumbs down his collar? _he wondered. "Besides, being an evil lawyer would be a spectacular business model, being responsible for the ambulances you chase..."

The Longbottom half-turned with a look of unexpected betrayal. "That's not funny."

"No, I suppose not," said the Potter, raising his fingers to the Scar. _My dear Neville, who did you lose?_

#

Once they'd gotten back inside, the Potter parted from the others and headed for the library. He wanted to look for school yearbooks. He also wanted to investigate some dictionaries...

...but neither the library's Oxford nor its magical supplement had an entry for "valeyard".


	9. Interlude: Seeding A Plant

_Another half-chapter, produced in the dark in more ways than one, and to be honest a little undercooked in the middle. Blame Sandy! We apologise for the inconvenience —Ed._

* * *

_Hier hinter den Myrtenbäumen  
In heimlich dämmernder Pracht,  
Was sprichst du wirr, wie in Träumen,  
Zu mir, phantastische Nacht?  
Es funkeln auf mich alle Sterne  
Mit glühendem Liebesblick,  
Es redet trunken die Ferne  
Wie von künftigem großen Glück!  
—_Joseph von Eichendorff.

#

**Interlude: Seeding A Plant.**

_...we may ask how all our friends can be aboard while many more of them live next door. Do not adjust your set theory! Yellow is easily transfigured to green (and vice versa) by way of reversing the polarity of the neuronengesang..._

_...a technique thematically similar to that demonstrated in the final chapter of Agathagata Christie's __The Mordor Of Old Roger Accloyd__..._

_...stargate, stargate, parastargate, to infinity and beyond..._

**+++ Division From Zero Error. Redo From Start +++**

_?! Now my error messages seem to have error messages!_

#

The Potter switched off his alarm before it started to ring and awoke to a bright and clear Saturday morning.

_Well, completely dark, _he thought_, hard to determine the clarity under the circs, but full of promise nonetheless! —And don't give me that reproachful look, _he added to Harry's wand as he put it away, _you're an inanimate object. Aren't you? You are? All right then._

It was a morning so full of promise, in fact, that there was no room left over in it for Mrs Norris. She was not waiting outside the portrait of Mme. du Mont for him, and after four minutes of patient waiting (well, two patient, the other two shifting from foot to foot) he decided that he could wait outside the portrait for her more productively by walking down to the first floor — which didn't strictly make sense, but then what did?

Down the stairs with mop and bucket.

Whither Mrs Norris? It was illogical to jump to conclusions, but he'd bet a bikkie she'd been taken off by Headmaster A. Brian D. to spend time with Mr Filch in St Mungo's, and that was the kind of forward-thinking policy decision he could thoroughly approve of, so he paused on the second floor landing to approve of it — _and incidentally, if he's Mr Filch, what did he steal?_ — before continuing downward. There was a mirror on the wall of the landing, so he made good use of it.

_Oh, the temptations,_ he thought while combing his hair. This mirror had a suspicious pattern of wear on its frame at lower right, possibly indicating a secret panel or passage behind it. While doing the scrubbing-bubble bit he'd seen so many mirrors and paintings and candle-sconces with suspicious patterns of wear it was extremely hard to go about his business. The school was undoubtedly full of secret passages (such as the one he'd deduced the Weasleys were going to use to slip out to Hogsmeade this weekend on one of their greymarket excursions) (if they branched into robes from Diagon Alley would that be a greyMalkin excursion?) (_shut up_) (you shut up) and what about that mysterious disappearing washroom on the seventh floor, eh, and _while the cat's away the mouse will play, yes?_

In fact, _no,_ because although he was pretty sure that he was more than accustomed to public squeaking, this place had more metaphorical cheese than a metaphorical cheese factory, and that suggested a really really big trap somewhere, and above all the question was, which game are you playing and against whom? And whether the walls had ears or not, the portraits had eyes. _Eventually_ he'd do some poking about, but when he did he'd do it good, hard and proper. For now, the rules rule.

Thunk, clunk, _first floor, telephones, gents ready-made suits — er, no, Muggle Studies, Defense Against the Dark Arts, the McGonagall's office, and I perceive that some mice have been playing because this hallway stinks of dungbombs, woo, explosion in the flatulence factory._

Yes, someone had been flinging it about, as it were, and the problem with that was, dungbombs were stickier than a stick. Also the it-flinging had not been limited to the floors, indeed quite a lot of it had gone halfway up the wall, not suitable for the mop.

While he took care of the floor he contemplated the wall. He _could_ use 0.000999001 of the _1001 Household Charms_ on it to be sure...but that would be cheating. _Don't want to cheat. WWFD?_ Mr Filch couldn't _do_ magic but he could use the pre-mixed kind — this very bucket made use of that: when you pushed the mop in when it was empty it filled up with hot surfactant-laden water — therefore, most likely he would use something like (in the _Charms_ book's advertising end-papers, what was it, oh yes) _Mrs Wibble's Infrequently-Fail Scrubby-Wubs. The c_aretaker's office was on the ground floor, bound to be a supply cupboard somewhere around there, and _what was that noise that just stopped?_

He was in front of, surprise, a door marked with a helpful icon of a person wearing a pointy hat and shoes, and...there was nothing happening in there, not any more.

So he continued the job he'd come to do.

And then he continued down to the ground floor and did it there, too...

#

...and lo, next to the caretaker's office was a door with a helpful icon in the form of a crossed broom and mop, right next to the broom cupboard.

Alas, it was locked, and not only that there was no keyhole.

Well! Needs must, then. I have a legitimate need and no other alternative other than not doing the job.

He looked innocently up at the ceiling and reached into his wand pocket.

_Harry J. Potter, pay attention. This one's called_ Alohomora.

#

Alohomora _didn't work._

_What rubbish is this? Hello? _Alohomora_, thief's friend, the locksmith that nibbles away _colloportus _and mechanical locks alike? Did I not explain it correctly?  
_

He bounced over to the door to the caretaker's office. Same hole-free knob design — rattle rattle — and locked as the Panama Canal.

"_Alohomora!_"

_Click. _The office door squeaked open a half-inch. _So the problem's not with alohomora, my explanation, or Harry. It's the supply closet door that's odd. _ He pulled the office door shut and it locked automatically.

Bounce back to supply closet door, cast withering glare at supply closet doorknob, doorknob fails to wither under glare.

_This is ridiculous._

_Why_ didn't it work? Was there extra security on this door? If so, why? No, set aside why, see if hypothesised extra security can be overcome with _bigger wand_.

He stowed the wand of holly and grabbed the wand of teak from the bucket. "All right, second chance: _alohomora!"_

Still nothing.

So he tried the last resort: giving it a good thumping.

He banged the door with the mop handle. "Oi! Open up, you! _Respect the office!_"

...

_Click. Squeak._

_#_

_What just happened there?_

He pushed the door open. Blackness and emptiness, no one inside to open it for him that he could tell.

Okay, close it again. Locked? Locked.

Knock with handle. "Oi! Open up, you! Respect the office!"

Nothing. Still locked.

_Interesting._ What changed? Not the words, so not a password. What, then? Why had it opened?

_(Fool.)_

No need to be rude _and_ unhelpful, internal monologue...

_(Sympathetic magic, why else?)_

Oh. Well. Yes.

No lock to pick, no password to guess, _alohomora-_proof: a door knob that respects the office. A caretaker is what does a caretaker's job. _I've got a mop and I'm not afraid to use it. _But what had he meant? What does caretaker mean, when you _mean_ it?

He stared at the knob. He tapped the mop handle on the door.

What _I_ mean is _I'm here to help._

_..._

_Click. Squeak._

_#_

_Okay, that felt like an early onset of Careers Day, but things to do..._

It was dark and spiderwebby inside the cupboard (_frisson_ of _deja vu_ from Harry there) but here were matches, there was oil lantern, _how primitive_, must talk to Brian about the lighting at Hogwarts, perhaps they could switch to ecstatic electricity — _blimey, it's like the 1890s in here!_

_Binswanger's Original Voomfangler Powder, Swishy-Dishy Flooby Dust, Paisley's Prestidigital Parquet Polish — _what, no witch hazel? — _a whole _wall _of Mrs Wibble products..._

...and...

..._and_...

...oh, _no,_ it _can't _be — _it is, isn't it,_ a suspicious wear pattern on the right-hand side of the very shelf full of boxes of _Infrequently-Fail Scrubby-Wubs_, oh, please, not a secret panel, not here, _don't tempt me when I'm alone in a room with no one watching!_

He turned to the hallway door, he turned back, he sat on the floor, put his head in his hands, rotated his beanie on his head, _no no no no no_ —

— all right, he decided, waving a cautionary finger in his face, _one_ secret panel, _one,_ since they're going to _force_ it on me! And I'm going to have words with someone when all this is over!

He got up, applied hand to shelf — _how's this work, just push, yes?_ Yes.

The shelf slid back and to the side, revealing eye-itching darkness behind. He drew the wand from his inside pocket, Harried up a _lumos _and stepped into the hidden world of mystery.

#

_Oh look — plumbing!_

Maintenance tunnel! Love a good maintenance tunnel. Look at all these copper pipes. Feel them. Hot ones, cold and damp ones, they must connect up to the bathrooms. And big ones — drain pipes. Drain pipes! _Always know your exits._

He followed the drain pipes downslope to a room on the dungeon level where they all fed into a very large cylinder that echoed with sloshing noises. _Sewage treatment, good for you, Hogwarts._ From the cylinder, two exit pipes: one leading straight into a stone wall (probably to the lake), another continuing down the corridor.

He followed the corridor until it ended in an ivy-covered grate — _caretaker-locked? not from this side, probably from the outside, though_ — and found that the pipe exited through the wall next to it; he couldn't see much through the ivy but glinting glass ahead indicated that the greenhouses were straight on from where he was — and with them, the vegetable garden. Ten Potter points to unknown ecological planner.

Press ear against grate, cries of night birds, forbidden forest in distance.

He turned around and cranked his _lumos_ to _maxima._

_And isn't that just Hogwarts?_

The tunnel stretched beyond the limits of his light. Clearly longer than the castle itself. No visible turns, twists, or ascending angle.

What to call this? Maintenance space? _M-space_ sounded cooler. Hypothesis: M-space is the reason for the extra security on the door. Don't want the kiddies poking around in the plumbing.

And the nice thing about M-space was — his outstretched wand hand was twitching — technically it wasn't a _hallway_.

There was no running in the halls at Hogwarts, it said so in the rules very clearly, and he was _being good_, but the rules said absolutely _nothing_ about running in M-space, ha-_haaaaaaa..._

Extend wand like rapier:

_"¡Al galope!"_

_#_

Now: one long run later, sauntering back down through M-space, what have we learned?

(_Running up corridors is jolly good fun?_)

No, we knew that. And it's not a corridor!

Well, we have learned that this is _it_, the entire retrofitted plumbing system for the whole building, all seven-floors-plus of it — and is it all twisty-turny with stairs and chutes and ladders? No, it's completely straight and level, all the feed pipes connecting through one wall and all the drain pipes running down from the ceiling of the other. The spatial-topology implications were sort of appalling — install wormholes to drain your sinks! — but it certainly simplified any repair work. And it was designed to be repaired — there were valves and extra connection points, so you could keep the service running while inserting a new section.

_And_ we learned who it was installed by, since at every junction point there was a circular metal plate in the wall bearing the modest notation _Diggory & Co. / Pebble Bay / 1835 _just below the X-shaped insignia of a crossed broom and mop.

The metal plates were interesting. In the empty sections of the X, at the 12, 3, 6 and 9 o'clock positions, appeared the letters Q.C.I.C —

(oh, and Gryffindor Tower's getting a new washroom, judging by the pile of new pipes and sinks and things he'd stumbled — _metaphorically, thank you_ — across)

— and what could Q.C.I.C. mean? And what were the plates for? They had hubs behind them, but they didn't look like valves and they didn't turn and when you pushed them they didn't move.

And what was that noise?

That very familiar noise, coming from behind this particular junction point?

Lean up against wall, ear to wall, pressing hard against plate to identify:

_That familiar rhythm of _sobbing...

_Click. Squeak._

_Splat._

#

_Right, okay,_ thought the Potter, picking himself up off the floor of a ladies loo, _that's what they are, access points for custodians, but they only open if you're actually custoding._

"What are _you_ doing in here?" demanded a voice. "_Get out!_"

The Potter looked up.

_Do you believe in love at first sight?_ he thought. Yes, I'm certain that it happens all the time. _Under these circumstances?_ Well...no.

Looking down at him in many ways — she was a weensy bit contemptuous, she was taller, but above all she was floating in midair — was a girl. A ghost. A ghost girl.

She was wearing _glasses_! _Spectral spectacles!_ _Brilliant!_

"Oh, hello!" said the Potter, brushing himself off. "Who am I?"

"—What?"

"Well, the way you said _you_ — you seemed to know. But if you don't know who I am I'll settle for who you are. Who are you?"

In her way she looked like a funhouse mirror version of himself, which was to say Harry Potter: same sort of glasses (_coke-bottle glasses, Godric Gryffindor I love coke-bottle glasses_), same sort of general design (other than being female) but sour. And dour. She looked like she'd caught a case of Snape. _Well, we'll soon fix that._

"You're Harry Potter," she said dismally. "Saviour of the wizarding world. The boy who lived. I hated you for a while, but I gave it up."

He gave her a stern, inquiring look. "Setting aside for a moment that we've moved on to the subject of you — answer me these questions three."

_P: "What year is this?"_

M: "1991."

_P: "Who's head of the Wizengamot?"_

M: "Albus Dumbledore, why?"

_P: "Who was headmaster when you were a firstie?"_

M: "Armando Dippet."

_P: "Why is a matchstick like a pin?"_

"That's four questions," she said, and added "Because the pain is sharp."

"It was a bonus. Two more, what's your name and are you doing anything for breakfast?"

"My name is Myrtle, and what are you talking about?"

_Just Myrtle?_

"Myrtle! That's a brilliant name! Very mythic." _Myrtle. A plant sacred to Aphrodite and Demeter. Garland of Iacchus. Symbolic of immortality, and indeed here she is. _"_When Venus rose from the bosom of the waves, the Hours presented her with a scarf of a thousand colours, and a wreath of myrtle." I can always get a colourful scarf. _"And I'm inviting you to breakfast. Why loiter in the toidy when you've got a whole castle to knock about in?"

"Because people leave me _alone_ in here! _Until now!_"

When she got angry she came into focus...

"You were crying, Myrtle. Never heard any people cry who weren't hoping someone would come and save them. Well, here I am: like you said, Harry Potter, saviour of the wizarding world —" _I don't think Freddie Mercury could do _anything _with _that — "and that includes you."

"But I'm _dead!_" she wailed, and oh look at those tears, silvery silvery...

"Rubbish!" said the Potter. "Life is a passing show, but _you_ aren't! When Death knocked at your door you told him you didn't need any today!

"You said _I don't want to go_, and _you_ made it _stick!_

_"Death _is a passing _shadow._ _You_ are _not!_

_"You exist and that's what's important!"_

She blinked down at him. "But I can't eat," she said reasonably.

"Arrangements will be made," he said crisply.

She cocked her head at him in perplexity. "I've never been asked out before..."

_What? _thought the Potter, and nearly said it aloud. _That makes as little sense as the lead piping under that sink over there._

"...the boys..."

_Yeah, okay, this is Hogwarts — between the high northern latitude and the school dress code, pale boys dressed all in black are pretty much the only model available, but you'd think at least one of the absinthe-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder set would have asked her out by now, she's a _ghost_._

"...they called me..._do you know what they called me?_"

_Flame and air? _"The _Sorting Hat_ called you brilliant," he said. "That's a Ravenclaw tie you're wearing. _Where's your wand, Myrtle Smith?_"

Shocked, Myrtle yanked the ghost of a wand from her ghost of an inside pocket.

"Show us a bit of the old _lumos_, Ravenclaw Smith!"

And she did, and the room was brighter, oh, so much brighter for it...

_She's a ghost. She's amorphous, a bit — fuzzy round the edges. Does that mean she's malleable? Let's try it. _"What's your _middle_ name, Myrtle Smith?"

"—I don't have a middle name," she said, slowly dragging her attention away from the light at the end of her wand.

"Well, you do now," he said, staring her straight in the eyes. "Harry James Potter, saviour of the wizarding world, says it's _Thalia_." _Grace of abundance, muse of comedy, goddess of parties._ "Now remember _that,_ Myrtle Thalia Smith, and _do not you forget it_.

"Now," he said, backing through the access panel into M-space, "I've got work to do and preparations to make, but when that breakfast bell tolls deep and wide, I will be expecting you as my guest at the Gryffindor table. Don't disappoint me."

#

"Harry Potter! It is Harry Potter!"

M-space was connected to the kitchens, of course, and now that he knew what he was doing there had been no trouble getting in. And now he was confronted by mildly awed elves. _Harry Potter, always Harry Potter, _o_h, why can't you love me for my mind?_

Ah well. Fine — the Potter is what does the Potter's job.

"Right, that's me," he said, "and you're the house elves, yes? Is there someone in a managerial capacity?" He peered down at their raggedy forms. Dozens had gathered before him, dozens more were casting glances at him from their various posts in the kitchen, which looked like the engine room of HMS _Delicious_.

One emerged from nowhere in particular (magic!) and half-bowed.

"This one is Razzy, Harry Potter. Chief of the House. What may we do for you?"

"For starters," he said, tearing his attention away from what was either an automatic donut maker or something intended to launch the castle into orbit, if not both, "tell me — is mopping the kitchen a caretaker's job or do you handle it yourselves?"

In carefully detached tones, Razzy said "We have our work, Harry Potter, as you have yours, and would prefer to maintain our...definition."

"No worries," said the Potter. "Secondly, you did a marvelous job on those bagels. And those pancakes. And that pizza. One of my colleagues is still murmuring 'abbondanza' in his sleep. Since you do customs, I was wondering if I might arrange at short notice an item for someone with special dietary requirements...?"

#

_Chug chug chug _pokkita_ chug chug chug _queep_ chug chug chug _glorp_ chug chug chug _wheeeee_ chug chug chug _vworp_..._

Clouds of vapor, thick as smoke and smelling like condensed sunrises, drifted out of the device sitting in front of Myrtle Thalia Smith.

It was actually getting more attention than she was. Certainly she was paying more attention to it than to anyone else at the table.

"What is _that_?" said the Longbottom, arriving late to breakfast because he'd had no one to lead him (but only five minutes late, he was improving).

"That, Neville," said the Potter, "is a _kitchen elf espresso machine._ By special arrangement.

"Love a nice cup of tea, me, but my friend here needed something stronger. Triple espresso, that's your number, Myrtle Thalia Smith!"

"You're making this place smell like an Il Giornale franchise," said a passing American exchange student. "Good, keep it up!"

"I don't get it, Harry, what's the point?" whispered the leaning-over Weasley.

"The point," rejoined the zig-zag Potter, "is that 90% of a cup of coffee is the smell. And this is 200% coffee, Jamaican Blue Mountain."

And it was working: Myrtle Smith was now available in colour.

#

"Harry, what are you _eating?_" said the nose-wrinkling Granger.

"Kimchi. Korean sauerkraut. I had a craving for bok choy, not sure why. Oh, and the liquorice-looking stuff is salmiakki. You don't want to know."

"It's _delicious, _whatever it is," said Myrtle, who was having the same. (Well, tasting it, anyway, holding it in the air with her wand...)

"Next I want to try you on habanero peppers," said the Potter. "And if those doesn't work, there's this stuff called devil's blood, something like 1,000,000 Scoville units, you'd have to be nonexistent not to taste it. You still have a tongue, we just need to crank up the gain."

"Oh, no," whimpered the Weasley, "here comes the _Bloody Baron_..."

_And doesn't the Malfoy look happy!_

#

"I don't mean to be rude, Myrtle," said the Potter amid the ruins of breakfast some time later, "but what do you do all day?"

Still slightly beatific from her first meal in decades, Myrtle was not offended. "The same thing I do at night. I drift up through the plumbing, I float down through the plumbing. Up and down, up and down, _susque deque..."_

"You must get around a bit, since you seem clear on current events. Just as a matter of interest, tell me what you know about our Headmaster. Quick _precis_,"

"Taught me Transfiguration, defeated Grindelwald (not that it made any difference to _me_), discovered all twelve known uses of dragon's blood..." she looked thoughtful. "He hums Schumann _lieder_ quite a lot...Schubert too..."

"And what do you know about Armando Dippet?"

"I never met him. I was going to, about the bullies, but then...then..."

He interrupted. "You know more about the current one than the one when you were a student, and that makes me wonder: why are you not a student now?"

Her equanimity cracked. "I'm _dead_."

"So what? You had Professor Binns for history, did you not?"

"Um—well, yes."

"Manifestly you can learn. Manifestly you can do magic. Logically there is no reason you shouldn't still be a student. See there at the high table, the little teacher with the espresso cup half as big as his head? The one who's vibrating? Visibly?

"The one who just fell off his chair. That's the current head of house for Ravenclaw. What say we go up there and talk to him about this?"

"What?" said Myrtle.

"You. Hogwarts. Diploma. Why not?"

"Um—um—um—"

"There are few things I admire so much as the human spirit, Myrtle Thalia Smith, and you actually _are_ one. Don't waste your potential! I mean, yes, relax and float downstream, but not _every_ day!"

"Er," hazarded Myrtle.

Progress, of a sort.

#

And then Professors McGonagall and Sprout had carried (towed? he was floating) Professor Flitwick off to the hospital wing despite his protestations that he felt much much better than fine.

"Well, we make adjustments," said the Potter, getting up from the table. "We'll just have to go see the Headmaster in person. I assume he's taking breakfast in his office, judging by his absence from the high table. Come along, Myrtle!"

"Why are you doing this?" said Myrtle.

The Potter watched his right hand go off in search of his packet of jelly beans while formulating an answer.

"I realise this is an imposition," he said at last, "but I think of myself as your friend."

"I don't know what a friend is," said Myrtle miserably.

"Then you have to admit the possibility that I am one. Sorry, was that a bit niminy-piminy? it's logically valid nonetheless. —Godric Gryffindor, _lutefisk?! _ Here, taste this."

"Why would I _want_ friends?" said Myrtle, dolefully accepting a slightly nibbled jelly bean.

"As we learn about each other, we learn about ourselves," said the Potter. "Also, you may yet need to borrow large sums of money at zero interest. You never know."

"This is _dreadful_," said Myrtle, sucking contemplatively on her levitating jelly bean.

"And it'll last all day!" said the Potter happily, leading her up the stairs.

#

"Ooh, machine oil," he said, as they arrived at the entrance to the Headmaster's office.

"Can I have it?"

"You can't have _all_ the good ones," he said, just as two stone gargoyles had stepped in front of the door to deny him passage. "Oh, all right, here." He looked up at the twelve-foot stone guardians, wondered briefly if the Headmaster's office had its own M-space accessible washroom, dismissed the idea, and said "My, you are the big ones, aren't you?" He offered them his paper sack. "Jelly bean?"

They stepped aside.

"All right, more for me." He pushed open the door and waved Myrtle through it. Inside was a wizardy spiral escalatory thingy, which he rode around and around to its destination while Myrtle rose straight up. _An occasionally useful thing, being dead,_ he mused. _You can do all sorts of things you could never do while you were alive._

At the top of the escalator was another door, upon which he knocked _shave-and-a-haircut_, as you do.

There was a long pause.

He knocked it again. The door replied _two-knuts_ and opened.

"May I be of some assistance, Mr Potter?" said an extremely bemused Professor Dumbledore. He clearly wasn't expecting visitors, dressed as he was in a tatty pink bathrobe, though he already had one lolling in a chair. His questioning gaze searched the Potter from a distance, found the bag of jelly beans, and said, _right, need to improve password policy._

"School business, sir," said the Potter, "won't be a tick. Hope I'm not interrupting anything...ooh, is that a spinny thing, I love a spinny thing!"

It was indeed a metal spinny thing, with lots of rotating hoops and dials with bouncing needles and he took several steps toward it before grabbing himself by his own collar and dragging himself in front of the Headmaster's desk.

There were a lot of similarly interesting things scattered atop said desk, but the most interesting thing of all was a simple scroll in the scroll-clip — handwritten in the handwriting of a man who had been up all night.

The man himself, which was to say Professor Snape, was asleep in a chair nearby.

The Potter read, upside-down:

_Thermodynamic and Onymatic Insights from Monkshood and Wolfsbane: The Impact Of True Names On Volatile Oleic Dispersion  
ABSTRACT  
The catalytic effects, upon various aromatic oils, of purely nomenclaturally differentiated aconites have been investigated, and the reaction kinetics have been analyzed. The results of these studies suggest..._

And wasn't _that_ interesting!

_"Zzz," _said Professor Snape. "_Zzzzimpertinent intruzzz..."_

"I'm here about a student who is several decades tardy, sir," said the Potter, pointing at Myrtle. "She's been cutting class like there's no tomorrow just because tomorrow never came. Due to extenuating circumstances, however, I think detention should be waived and she should simply be allowed to resume her studies."

The Headmaster stared.

"_Zzzzappalling insolenzzz...ought to be exzzzpelled..._" murmured Professor Snape.

"An intriguing suggestion," said the Headmaster.

"_Good,_" said Snape. "_Riddanzzz..._"

"Not that one, Harry," said the Headmaster.

"Oh, I don't mind," said the Potter. "If it will make Professor Snape feel better I'll just take Myrtle and we'll go to another school, like Durmstrang, or that one the older boys can't pronounce properly."

One of the Headmaster's eyes twinkled, the other took on a sort of "you wretched boy, you know I don't dare laugh and wake him" expression.

He blinked both expressions away and looked at Myrtle T. Smith for a while.

"How entropy steals up on us," he said softly.

"We don't even notice it, and then there's a change of viewpoint and suddenly you realise how bad things have gotten.

"We come into situations and too often accept them as we find them, assuming them to be normal, or, worse yet, accept an actual norm rather than pursuing the optimal. —And what do you have to say for yourself, young lady?"

Evergreen Myrtle said, "Um, I thought I had a valid excuse, sir."

"Indeed," said Dumbledore. "And have you any valid _reason_ not to pursue your studies going forward?"

"Not that I can think of, other than...incorporeality."

"I'm informed that the Wizengamot have taken several relevant European Court of Human Rights precedents into account regarding handicapped access to government-funded institutions. Arrangements would, of course, be made.

"—As a side issue, Harry, I am pleased to report that Mr Filch has made a full recovery. However, he will not be returning to school until Monday week, as his doctor has sent him to Santorini on holiday, along with Mrs Norris. Apparently neither of them gets enough sun.

"But on this matter, this _is_ something of a precedent, and though I have the authority to make it happen unilaterally I must take it under advisement with the faculty as regards particulars. I shall notify you both, when said advice has been taken, regarding my decision."

The Potter nodded.

The Headmaster drummed his fingers in a muted way upon his desktop. "I'm told you've been pestering our librarian regarding an interest in, I believe the word is _everything?_

"I believe you might find _this_ book of interest." He gestured, and a book floated to his hand from the bookshelves in a distant part of the office. "It is a book of lies-to-children, but, _mirabile dictu_, you appear to be one!"

#

_The gods held a banquet in celebration of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, but deliberately neglected to invite Eris, the goddess of discord. She came anyway, and into the ceremony threw a golden apple bearing the inscription KALLISTI, meaning "to the fairest." Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite claimed it, and brought their conflict before Zeus for arbitration._

_Zeus assigned the task to a passing wizard whose name is lost to history._

_The wizard contemplated the problem and said:_

_"Hera is the goddess of marriage, and what could be fairer than two loving hearts that beat as one?_

_"Athena is the goddess of civilization, and what could be fairer than civility?_

_"Aphrodite is the goddess of love, and all is fair in love._

_"Are you _quite sure _you're three different goddesses?"_

_He therefore transfigured five copies of the apple and awarded one to Hera, one to Athena, one to Aphrodite, one to Eris herself on the grounds that she rained blows on the just and unjust alike, one to Eris's sister Aneris (goddess of harmony) because sisterhood is powerful, and kept the original for himself._

_He then apparated away, after suggesting that both Eris and Aneris be put in charge of music for the next party, on the grounds that both dissonance and harmony are necessary in that area._

_And so the modern age began._


	10. Interlude: Seeding A Plant (Part Deux)

_Due to a lack of dietary and moral fiber, the untimely disappearance of my copy of HP1, getting bogged down in research on what should have been minor details, a severe case of apophenia (and relatedly getting sidetracked on decoding Steven Moffat's Grand Plan) this chapter just blathers on and on. I hope to have the last third posted before 10 PM 1 December! though I decline to specify in which time zone, and would remind you that lots of planets have a December —Ed._

#

_Memories are blurred  
and their faces are obscured  
but I still know the words to this song_  
— Lewis / Lenich / Kirya, "Gypsy Bard"

#

**Interlude: Seeding A Plant, Part Deux.**

The time was approaching ten o'clock in the morning, and so the part of the Potter's mind that thought that no-one should get up before ten was now performing the mental equivalent of shuffling around in its bunny slippers looking for coffee and wondering why the soap was in the butter dish.

_Oho, we've been busy,_ it said, peering blearily at the Myrtle floating alongside him as he made his way from the Headmaster's office to the Gryffindor common room.

_Yes, yes we have,_ thought the Potter, _and plenty more to do ere this day is done! So many possibilities, and only one me — it seems so unfair!_

All of Hogwarts inside and out to investigate, all the people to talk to, and one tiny body to do it with. It _was_ unfair. How was he supposed to give everyone his individual attention? How could he even _prioritise?_

_Well, let's be arbitrary, _said the ten-o'clock scholar. _Ask Percy what to do. Also, that girl looks like she needs some sun._

"Myrtle, you look like you need some sun," said the Potter.

"I'm pale because I'm _dead,"_ said Myrtle.

"You're not dead, you're homeopathically alive. —Oi, Percy!"

"Li'l bszy r't now, P't'r." Percy the Perfect Prefect, trotting down the hallway carrying a box full of scrolls, more scrolls crammed under each arm, a quill in his mouth and another quill behind his right ear, did indeed look busy.

"Just a quick question!"

"B'zz! Eee!"

The Potter took the quill out of Percy's mouth and stuck it behind Percy's left ear. "Where do you tell firsties to go when you want to get them out of your hair?"

"Go look for Merlin's _esplumeor_, Potter!" said Percy. "—Er. Is what I tell them. Minus the Potter."

#

"I'm going on a great adventure," aanounced the Potter. "Who wants to come with?"

He waited. The occupants of the Common Room looked blankly back at him. He tried again.

"Great adventure?" he said. "Going on? —This _is_ Gryffindor, isn't it?"

"Sorry, mate," said the Weasley sheepishly. "We're going to listen to the quidditch on the wizard wireless."

He pointed at the wizard wireless in question.

"—_wouldn't go _that_ far, Martin,_" nattered an announcer type voice. "_When they played at Ynysangharad Park in 1932 they replaced the entire _team _at the last moment..._"

"Is _everyone_ going to sit indoors on a beautiful Saturday and just listen to the quidditch?" said the Potter.

"Dean and Seamus are outside playing feetball," said the Weasley. "Or is it football? Can't be, they use more than one, don't they? They'd have to, they'd fall over otherwise..."

"And _I_ have studying to do," said the Granger, giving the Potter the hairy eyeball from over her Potions book. She was holding it upside down, presumably having already read it backwards and forwards. (Some of the diagrams did make more sense in that orientation.)

"Erm," said the Potter, and made a mental note to be perceived to be studying on occasions in the future.

_Someone's missing from this scene,_ yawned Ten-o-Clock. _Oh, you noticed, never mind,_ he added, as the Potter was already on the stairs dashing up to the dormitory.

There was the Longbottom:lying in bed fully clothed, staring up at the canopy overhead.

"Sst!" hissed the Potter. "Neville! Great things are afoot! _¡Vamos y vamonos!_"

#

The Potter flung wide the doors and led his micro-gang into the sunlight of the Middle Courtyard. He turned around, walking backwards while one of his hands went hunting through his inside pocket. It emerged clutching one of the Chocolate Frog cards he'd gotten last Sunday.

"Merlin!" he said, holding up the card.

Merlin was in Asenion Izzard's _Biographical Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Wizardry_, among other books, but he was also on a Chocolate Frog card because if you wanted to teach children something important that's exactly where you'd put it.

The front of the card showed a sepia-tone moving image of a waving couple, captioned _Dr Merlin L. Wylt-Emrys and his lovely wife Gwendoline at their home in 7, Ardery Street, Glasgow._

"What do you know about him?" continued the Potter.

"Um," said the Longbottom, blinking in the sun. "Medieval, dates unknown. Most famous wizard of all time. Sometimes known as the Prince of Enchanters. Part of the Court of King Arthur..."

"Verbatim from the back of this card," said the Potter. "Good man. Anyone else?"

"He was noted for his work on transfiguration," said Myrtle, who'd had four years of History of Magic. "Quicksand to bedrock, humans to squirrels and ants, and —" she stared across the grass at the arcade at the other side of the cloister, apparently reading the words straight off the wall — "_his invention of nidificatory emboîtement and deboîtement._" She looked quite pleased with herself after reciting the last bit, getting a sort of now-_that's_-verbatim look on her face.

"Nidifi_what?_" said the Longbottom.

"Fitting spaces inside other spaces," said Myrtle. "Think Russian nesting dolls, only all the dolls are the same size."

"Spot on," said the Potter. "He awarded _himself_ the Order of Merlin (fourth class) for installing the Hogwarts Library, after he graduated. Appropriately recursive, don't you think? —Oh, hello!"

This last was directed at the Fat Friar, who was sunning himself on, or rather above, a sealed lavatorium near the walkway they were traversing.

"Good morning! How nice to see you all outside!" said the Fat Friar.

"Isn't it, though?" said the Potter. "I don't know, no one _else_ wanted to come — complete lack of quality control in the department of childhood, we should _all_ be out here running around screaming — say, you're contemporary with the founding of the school, aren't you? did you ever meet Merlin?"

"Ah, Merlin of the Cold Feet, the famous _Doctor Mnemosynus_," said the Fat Friar reflectively. "I knew him very little, I'm afraid — he was in Slytherin, you know, we met only at the Spem meetings."

"Spem?" said Neville.

_Cold feet?_ thought the Potter.

"SPM. _Société Protectrice des Moldues_. Muggle Protection Society," said the Friar. "But you're going to ask me about his _esplumeor, _aren't you?" he added, winking at the Potter.

"How did you know? —I mean, unless of course hunting for it is a Hogwarts student tradition...?"

"Oh, it used to be!" said the Fat Friar. "Sir Percival _did_ have a house in the Forbidden Forest. So the _esplumeor_ could indeed be around here. But the hunt rather fell by the wayside over the centuries — lack of success will do that. If you can't find it in nine hundred years it's probably not to be found."

The Longbottom had his hand raised.

"Yes, Neville?" said the Potter.

"I haven't the faintest idea what's going on," said the Longbottom. "Why are we out here, and what's an _esplumeor_?"

"Could you give us the canonical-historical explanation?" said the Potter to the Friar.

"Ah," said the Fat Friar. "Well. You know about the whole business with Camelot, searching for the Grail, et cetera, and King Arthur retiring to the Isle of Apples?"

_(I love apples!_ thought the Potter. _When they're not too big.)_

"I know that much," said Neville vaguely.

"Well, after that, Merlin disappeared from the face of the earth. He said he was going into retirement. He said he'd got himself a place near Percival's house in the forest, and — this is the key bit — the last thing he said on the subject was, 'All who see my abode will call it Merlin's _esplumeor._' Intriguing, what?"

"But what _is_ an esplummythingy?" said Neville.

"Nobody knows!" said the Fat Friar. "That was the big mystery. We think he made it up. A nonce word, what they call a _hapax legomenon_ when it gets written down. He was a Slytherin, they love to be enigmatic, it makes them sound deep.

"Well, right up until the 16th century it was the done thing to go hunting for it, since as I say it _could_ be here on the mountain somewhere, and for another two hundred years after that it was common to say _I'm going looking for Merlin's esplumeor_ when you meant you were going to go slouching about the schoolgrounds doing nothing; and for a while in the 1800s some of the school clubs with initiation ceremonies would send candidates looking for it in a sort of get-me-a-lefthanded-spanner sense.

"I'm delighted if you're picking up the slack — good luck and my blessing — but don't get your hopes up."

"_Semper spero meliora_," said the Potter. "Incidentally, we've never been properly introduced — what _is_ your name, by the way, Friar?"

The Fat Friar beamed. "Brother Jacques de Ventre, thank you for asking!"

There was a screech from overhead.

They all looked up just in time to see Mordecai curling in from the southeast; he flew straight through Brother Jacques and landed on the cover of the lavatorium.

"Good heavens!" said the Fat Friar, suddenly discomposed. "Now my alveoli are all itchy. Excuse me, please, I have a sudden need to go drift through some thorn bushes!" He floated away in a hurry.

"Au revoir!" said the Potter, turning his attention to Mordecai, who was bearing a blue envelope addressed to Harry.

Inside said envelope was something that didn't make immediate sense and a note that read:

_Dear Harry,_

_Professor Dumbledore tells me to give you these._

_Don't know why. __Let us in on it sometime?_

The something that didn't make immediate sense consisted of two playing cards (red and black jokers) bound together with a metal ring. They had grommets attached for the ring to pass through.

"What're those for?" said the Longbottom, shortly after the Potter asked himself the same question.

"Um," said the Potter. "Two playing cards sent, at the direction of the Headmaster, from the Keeper of the Keys at Hogwarts.

"Card tricks, magic cards — playing cards are sometimes used to open doors; they call it the celluloid system. I _think_ this is a set of spare keys, more or less. The janitorial supply closet door is locked and has no keyhole, so I'd guess that's what one of these is for, and the other one is probably for the caretaker's office.

"Quite a responsibility!"

#

"To my way of thinking," he said, leading them across the lawn in the general direction of Hagrid's hut, "only people who figure out what _esplumeor_ means will be able to recognize Merlin's abode. Anyone else could look straight at it and not even know what it was."

"And we're going to do that?" said the Longbottom. "Figure out today what no one's managed to solve in a thousand years?"

"Of course we are," said the Potter. "We've got a Slytherin, a Ravenclaw and two Gryffindors, we ought to be able to work it out. Unless it's a long term problem — then we'd need a Hufflepuff. But it's probably just clever and devious, Slytherins are lazy."

"I resemble that remark," said a passing Beaconsfield. "Going to give up that beanie on Wednesday, Potter?"

"I hope not! Green is my colour!"

The Beaconsfield laughed and continued on his way.

"Why, exactly, _are_ we doing this?" said the slightly bemused Myrtle.

"Fun?" said the Potter. "To get out and about in the fresh air and sunshine?" _To show you the good time that you so obviously need? _"It's called mucking about! You're supposed to muck about, it's what people are for."

"So _esplumeor_ is like a code word?" said the Longbottom gamely.

"Or an encoded word," said the Potter. "What do you think it means, my uncaged Ravenclaw?"

Myrtle bobbed up and down in a noncommittal manner. "Looking at it linguistically? _Plume_, feather. Prefix _es_, away, so plucking. And the _or_ suffix...I don't remember my French very well, but I think it would mean either one-who-performs, or maybe place-of-performance."

"Which would give something like place of plucking, or moulting. But he was a Slytherin, and Slytherins love being cryptic. We love wordplay. Given that he was retiring, what does that suggest?"

"He was laying down his pen," said Myrtle. "Feathers being _pennae_ in Latin — quill pens, that sort of thing..."

"Spot on," said the Potter. "If memory serves, an _em_plumeor, supposedly, is someone, particularly a magician, who writes with a feather. —Neville, remind me later to patent the ballpoint quill."

"Okay," said Neville.

"So, we've got a place he put down his quill — which, incidentally, ties in with the fact that a merlin is a type of falcon."

"It's also a small Welsh pony," announced Myrtle.

The Longbottom looked back and forth between Myrtle and the Potter. "How do you know all these weird things?"

"I used to read a lot," said Myrtle. "I wonder if I can start again?"

"Heaven only knows what I did," said the Potter. "But to get back to the subject at hand — if a merlin is a pony _and_ a merlin is a falcon _and_ a capital-M Merlin is a wizard, what do you get when you add all three kinds of merlin together?"

"A magic pony with feathers?" said the Longbottom.

"Pegasus!" he added, simultaneous with Myrtle.

And with that they arrived at Hagrid's hut.

#

"So yer actin' janitor now?" said Hagrid, rattling mugs in the area of his sink.

"Yes I am!" said the Potter proudly. "Got a mop, got a bucket, got the respect of the school, and what more can I ask for?"

"Dunno if the school respects janitors all _that_ much," said the giant, setting two cups of tea in front of Neville and the Potter respectively, and then one cup of piping hot super-sweet durian extract for Myrtle. "Wouldn't be much of a punishment if it did, eh?"

"What kind of punishments did they hand out when you were a student?"

"We-ell, speakin' purely fer m'self, when I was a firstie an' got in trouble they just set me to landscapin'."

"Landscaping?" said the Longbottom.

"Transplantin' trees and that," said Hagrid. "One in each hand, that sort o' thing. Movin' statues about...

"But never mind me, what's the secret? Yeh didn' come down here jus' to answer me a question. I can tell, yer up teh sumthin'."

#

"...and where would a pegasus retire to but yet a fourth kind of pen, which is to say a stable?" said the Potter. "Which is partly why we're here: a question for the Hogwarts gamekeeper. You take care of the animals, you might know. I'm guessing that when the Hogwarts Express started running, it put some stables out of use, am I right? When people started coming by train instead of horses."

"Yeh, the old stables — opposite end o' the castle from the greenhouses, 'tween the quidditch pitch an' the lake. Converted to groundskeepin' storage long before my time. You think Merlin's thingy is one o' them buildin's?"

"Won't hurt to look!"

#

_"Well, good luck — if yer dad's gang couldn't find it, I don't think it's gonna be found at Hogwarts."_

_So he had said. And yet this was clearly it._

"This clearly isn't it," said Myrtle.

"Of course it is, look at it," said the Potter, carefully detangling himself from the rakes that had exited the former stable with him. _The tines have caught up with me, ahahaha. _"It's an ancient stone stable with a bas-relief of pegasus ponies on. How can it _not_ be Merlin's _esplumeor_?" He pointed at the wall of the stable. "Look. Pony pegasus dropping a pen from its mouth, right there in plain sight."

"Are you sure it's not just grazing?"

"It's a quill, not grass."

"Well maybe this _is_ his thingy," said the Longbottom diplomatically, "but it's just not very...er...

"I _mean_, if this was just, you know, his retirement cabin...he might have packed up and moved to Florida. After they discovered it of course. Sometimes a building's just a building, and not very interesting. Although very, erm, historically significant of course."

"Of course it's interesting," said the Potter, removing the last rake. "You don't create a mystery and then have it be boring."

"Not intentionally," said Neville.

"We just aren't looking at it right," declared the Potter.

"Hmm," said Myrtle. _And we're off!_

"I like it when you say _Hmm_, Myrtle Smith," said the Potter, stowing the rakes back inside the door. "What have you seen that we missed?"

"Well," said Myrtle reluctantly, pointing at a feature of the bas-relief, "_that_ pegasus, rearing up next to the door? Is wearing _one_ bell boot. It could be a pun."

"So if we want in, ring the bell? Makes perfect sense to me." He drew Harry's wand. "What do you think, just tap it? or Alohomora?"

"But I'm not sure they _had_ bell boots a thousand years ago," continued Myrtle, "so it might just be a later addition, and not meaningful."

_The historical Merlin _I_ seem to know of predates Hogwarts by about 400 years,_ thought the Potter. _That makes anachronism a positive_ plus. _And __Alohomora ought to be good for something.._.

So he tried it.

#

There had been all manner of stuff in the stable — rakes, shovels, coils of wire, a big lawn-roller; he'd fallen over, across or into most of it — but conspicuously missing from the inventory had been, for example, a very large bell.

And yet a very large bell had just tolled — deep and wide, like one of the clock tower bells, but not from the direction of the school.

"That came from inside," said Neville, intrigued at last.

"Shall we wait for the butler?" said the Potter.

"Yes," said Neville.

"Yes," said Myrtle.

"Right then," said the Potter. "You two wait for the butler, I'll go in."

And he flung open the door.

#

"Now _this_," he said, rubbing his hands together, "is something _like_..."


	11. Interlude: Seeding A Plant (Part Trois)

_Right, kids, this is actually where it _stops_ getting complicated. It's all Potter working the problem after this chapter; peak weird is done; Patrick McGoohan has left the building. If you desire explanatory spoilers look to the bottom of the Author Profile page._

_Note: I went to all the trouble of timestamping each section and got the timestamps wrong. Fixed! _—Ed.

#

_I don't want to give a definition of thinking, but if I had to I should probably be unable to say anything more about it than that it was a sort of buzzing that went on inside my head._  
— Alan Turing

_I met her at the World's Fair in 1900, marked down from 1940._  
— E.Y. Harburg¹

#

**Interlude: Seeding A Plant, Part Trois.**

_**3:02 PM** Saturday, in the Gryffindor common room:_

When the Potter, the Longbottom and the Myrtle arrived they found a comfortably tired Percy Weasley crammed into a chair with his feet up on a hassock, armed with tea and newspaper.

"Hello, Potter," said the Perfect Prefect, who looked like he'd had a stone removed from his shoe. "Sorry I was a bit short with you earlier — got dragooned into helping with the school's codex upgrade — scrolls should have been at the rebinders in Ottery St Catchpole _last_ week — everything's been delayed since the floo network glitched and started directing Ottery St Catchpole traffic to Toseland St Agnes." He paused to breathe and then sipped his tea. "Was that self-important? No, it was. So, any luck finding the old _esplumeor_, then?"

"Ah — yes!" said the Potter brightly, raising an indicative finger. "Yes, found it straight away, but he wasn't in."

"Tch! Isn't that _always_ the way?" said Percy, raising his _Daily Prophet_ into reading position. "Once Dad took me all the way to Devon for a pediatrician's appointment and _he_ was out, too. Oh, incidentally, Fred and George are looking for you. Don't know why, it's safer not to ask. They just went up into your dormitory."

"Ah, my chocolate frogs have come in!" said the Potter. "I shall collect them immediately, thank you."

"I don't think he believed you about Merlin," said the Longbottom as they ascended the stairs.

"Well, no matter," said the Potter over his shoulder. "Probably shouldn't noise it about, anyway; if the world's best wizard _does_ pop back in, he won't appreciate finding his nasturtiums trampled by _hoi polloi_."

"Who would I tell?" said the Longbottom. "Anyway he didn't have any nasturtiums."

#

_**2:30 PM** __Saturday, _upside down in a tree in Merlin's esplumeor_:_

The Potter turned a page, and continued reading aloud from his book of fairy-tales.

_Herakles was weeping quietly in a garden grove next to sleeping Omphale when a wizard passed by._

_"And what's wrong with you, O muscled mope?" said the wizard, idly tying and untying the ends of a bit of string._

_"Blackouts," said Herakles. "How can I enjoy such sweet slavery to the Queen of Lydia when so often I wake up to find I've thrown someone off a building? It's really getting me down."_

_"You're Herakles," said the wizard, unraveling his bit of string. "You've rescued people from the underworld before."_

_"As has been said," the hero observed not without bitterness, "Atropos always takes her cut."_

_"Ah," said the wizard, making a cat's-cradle out of his threads, "but if the Fates are in charge, then the Fates are to blame, not you."_

_"That is so," mused Herakles. "And yet it is the instrument that is bloodied, not the wielder. I am still entangled; what of the dead?"_

_"Take them all fruit baskets," murmured Omphale, "and do it now, for Lydia is trying to sleep."_

_"You should marry that girl," said the wizard._

_And thus did taking satsumas to the underworld become the First Voluntary Labour of Hercules._

"_Footnote_," read the Potter. "_Herakles did marry Omphale, and they had a bouncing baby boy named Tyrsenus who later invented the trumpet._"

"Is that _really_ what it says?" said the Longbottom.

"I embellish only slightly," said the Potter, and blew fitfully at a butterfly. (He was in a Japanese maple, the yellow-barked kind with pink leaves that draw butterflies like the pink leaves of yellow-barked Japanese maples and basically nothing else.) "Footnote two — originally it was golden apples, but some scholars say apples were actually satsumas in those days."

He tried to flip back to the contents, but the stiff title page didn't want to cooperate, leaving him looking at the dedication and bookplate again—

_TO MY PARENTS  
All stories are written,  
but not all stories are read  
and fewer still lived._

_From The Library Of  
Nicholas Flamel,  
DMA, MD, &c.  
__14 Canterbury Lane  
Westward Ho!_

"Anyone want to hear another one?" he said.

"To be honest," said the Longbottom, who was in a rope swing-seat on the other side of the tree, "I didn't hear all of the last one."

"What _are_ you looking at?" asked the Myrtle, who was floating nearby. It was a rhetorical question; it was very obvious what the Longbottom was looking at.

"With the sun behind you you're all glowy," said the Longbottom. "Like a stained glass window. Except you even make rainbows."

"I hate rainbows," said the Myrtle. "They look like they're waiting to have someone draw eyes over them to turn them into frowny-faces."

"But rainbows don't go just up and down, they go around and around."

"Even worse," said the Myrtle.

"_Actually_," said the Potter, who was discovering a shameful fondness for pedantry, "they're discs, not circles — not discs, hyperdiscs, well, spheres anyway. They radiate from a center you can't see and they never really stop."

The Myrtle bobbed up and down thoughtfully.

The Potter closed the book—

_A Nice and Proper Mythology  
For Little Witches and Wizards  
by Silvia Eventi_

—sat up, grabbed the branch with one hand, dropped one leg and fell gracefully to the ground. "All right, then, if you're not going to pay attention you should go and not pay attention _in_ school, where it's traditional. I don't think Merlin's going to show up anyway, he's probably off on Saturdays.

"Now, where did I leave my socks?"

"In your shoes?" suggested the Longbottom.

"And those?"

"In Merlin's office," said the Myrtle. "Don't you pay _any_ attention to what you're doing?"

"Of course not. Nobody should pay attention to what I'm doing. Oh, and Neville — don't throw those apple cores away. Cores are good."

He ran barefoot through the short and sweet grass back to the hut...

#

_**12:30 PM** __Saturday, _under an orange tree in a small forest in Merlin's esplumeor:

_I want to do something new and exciting,_ thought the Potter, lazily discarding an orange peel. _Something I've never done before..._

_...I know!_

_I'll take a_ nap!

#

_**11:20 AM** ____Saturday,_ in Merlin's garden:

"_Lunaria annua, Linum usitatissimum, Coreopsis grandiflora,"_ murmured the Longbottom, continuing his ticking-off of the contents of Merlin's garden.

"Coreopsis — isn't that a poem?" said the Myrtle.

"I don't _think_ so...Lonicera periclymenum, Helianthus annuus _— Rosaceae caeruleus!"_

"Rosawhatsis?"

"Blue roses," said the Longbottom, looking up at the girl overhead. "Jeanette Calvados is still bragging on her Demeter Award for creating blue roses, and they've been growing here since _when?_

_"_—Now _that's_ funny..."

At the heart of Merlin's vast garden was something that looked like a radially-sliced cheese sampler, twelve feet wide and made of flowers. In its very center was a blue glass mirror ball: half-silvered, so that when he looked into it, the Potter could see everything: the people who stood behind him, the inside of the ball, and what lay beyond it, all tinted faint indigo.

"I mean, out of season, yeah," said the Longbottom, walking around the flowery disc in puzzlement, "belongs in a greenhouse or a refrigerator, okay, but...huh."

"Define _huh_," said the Myrtle. "And what do you consider funny? People have strange ideas about funny, I know _that._"

"It's a flower clock," said the Longbottom. "A Linnaeus flower clock. But it's _stopped_." He glanced up at the sky. "By that sun, real or not, it's something like half past noon. Passionflower shouldn't be open — the four o'clocks are three hours fast — the evening primrose shouldn't open until _six."_

"Somebody set the clock ahead?" suggested the Potter.

"The lapsana and prickly sow-thistle should have closed hours ago. I don't even want to _think_ about the night-blooming cereus_._"

_Sounds like a cereus problem, _said the Potter, in a test version of reality that didn't go very far. "Ah," said he in the production-ready version. "Well — magic?"

"What's the point of a flower clock magically stopped at every o'clock?"

"We'll ask Merlin, if he ever turns up," said the Potter. "We're running out of places to look. Myrtle, could you give us a bit of the old...above and beyond?" He waved his hands in upwards spirals.

She looked down at him. "What, you want me to go flying?"

"Yeah!"

"Just because I'm a ghost? That's so..._ist_."

"Ist?"

"Spiritualist is already taken. It's _some_ kind of ist."

"How about superheroist?"

She tilted her head thoughtfully (32 degrees) and then rose decisively up into the air.

"Apple trees," she said, looking down, "pear trees, orange trees, ponds, lawn, some fences, a little raincloud...and then it just sort of stops. It's like the sky curves d— _ow! —_own."

"Dowown?"

"I hit my head on something!" complained the Myrtle. Rubbing her head with one hand she ran the other across an apparent surface located some thirty feet above the ground. "How can I hit my head on _anything?_ I'm a _ghost!"_

"It's a created space," said the Potter. "You didn't hit your head on something, or even anything, you hit it on nothing. It's topologically impossible for you to rise higher."

"What about the _sky?_" said the Myrtle. "What about the _sun? _Oh, right, it's like the ceiling in the Great Hall...only with heat. Or is it just my embarrassment I feel?"

"Did you see any people walking around down here? Other than the usual suspects."

"No," she said, and descended.

"Ah, well. Might as well have lunch then." He pointed in the direction of the grove of fruit trees. "Fancy a picnic in the grove? Those apple trees look like they actively want to give a demonstration of gravity, no point in letting them go to waste." _Like to ask Merlin about _that_...gravity: where does he get it? Is is a deliverable? ...how does he pay?_

"Fruit won't do me any good," said Myrtle, with just a hint of sulk.

"I'm not sure about that, actually," said the Potter. "If you're a psychic phenomenon, you might actually be able to read minds. You two could try putting your heads together..."

#

_**11:17 AM** ____Saturday,_ on Merlin's back porch:

There were crystal merlins — the model-bird kind — hanging from strings attached to the ceiling of the porch roof, twinkling in the apparently perpetual noon.

"I love magic," declared the Potter, stepping out of the hut and giving one of the birds a light touch, sending it swinging back and forth.

"Who doesn't?" said the Longbottom, as though the Potter had professed a certain degree of affection for breathing.

"No, I mean it. These birds? Started out as a sort of modeling clay. Guess what kind of crystal they are now."

The Longbottom contemplated the crystal birds. "Quartz?"

"Bearing wizard psychology in mind?"

"Diamond?" said the Longbottom.

"_Excellent_ guess!" said the Potter. "Exactly the sort of thing _a_ wizard would do — take a bit of polyvinyl chloride and crank it up to 10 on the Mohs scale. Why? Who knows. Good for making unbreakable worse than supertoys that don't last the endless summer long. Excellent guess — but wrong."

"Not diamond?"

"Nope. _Rectified lonsdaleite_, according to what I just read on a card in there." And of course in some other books he didn't care to admit to having read for fear of being deemed a showoff. "On a scale of 1 to 10: 15.8, possibly much higher. When turning it up to eleven just isn't good enough, call in Merlin. Now, what have we back here?"

Behind Merlin's hut was a very large garden that extended into a grove of fruit trees; to each side of the grove was a body of water edged by ferns. ("_Osmunda regalis_," said the Longbottom. "I think.")

"Think he's gone fishing?" said the Potter, looking from pond to pond.

"I think we'd see him, unless he's invisible," said the Longbottom. "He might be on his hands and knees in the garden, and I'd like to get a look at that...well, Merlin too I suppose."

#

_**11:07 AM** ____Saturday, __in Merlin's front and only room:_

"Blimey," said the Potter, looking around Merlin's office. "Bit of a symbolic narcissist, wasn't he?"

Merlins, merlins, merlins - if merlins were words, there'd have been more than Hamlet would have been able to cope with: birds, welsh ponies, hybrids of the two, painted, sculpted, papier-mache; there was even one made of glued-together lentils, hanging from a string on the ceiling (that one had a sort of constipated look on its face, as though it were trying to lay an egg in midflight, but there's only so much you can do with beans as a medium). On the windowsill a whole spectrum of pony merlins stood, gleaming glassily like water caught mid-ripple.

"Narcissist? Harry!" said the Longbottom. "He was the greatest wizard ever!"

"Didn't say he didn't earn it," said the Potter. "I'm sure he could take a valid criticism rather than offense. Besides, if he turns up burned up I'm wearing a Slytherin tie." He stroked his tie. "Smooths everything out, like the right kind of spats." _Mem: get a pair of spats._

There was a big mirror hanging opposite the window, and come to notice it the window was on the wrong wall, relative to where it had been on the outside, but that couldn't be helped. Under the window hung a blue-lacquered banjo. Under the mirror was a desk; under the desk was a utilitarian backless padded and wheeled stool.

The desk was neat, in its way, with hinged plates of glass that covered the scattered, largely illegible notes written forward and backwards on various bits of paper in various languages._²_ To the rear of the hinges, stacked up against the wall, were old highly magical reference books: _The Working of Worms_ by Milton H. Cudworth; Colonel Gardner's _Collected Appendices; Raising Flowers Indoors_ by Eccolo Eccoti; _Pippi In Space_ by Astrid Lindgren; _On the Natural Resonance of Crystals_ by Segreti Svelati; and Asenion Izzard's _Encyclopedia of Everything Else_ (volume 42, _Topiary-Topopoeia_).

Other than the books, the only object on the desk was a decorative dual-level Lazy Susan, with a merlin (welsh pony type) for a handle, the whole business crusted with eye-poking aquamarines. The Potter took mild affront at this; as a wizard, one should hold out for emeralds in these matters. Maybe it was salvaged equipment, or of sentimental value only: it certainly seemed to be broken, as it didn't rotate when pushed. Its top held various labeled bottles — _eye of newt, C. zeylanicum, F. carica, T. praecox — _and on the bottom sat a fluid-filled glass jar labeled _Gaudeamus. _Tucked under the jar was a 5x8" recipe card, which, when untucked, also read _Gaudeamus, _continuing on the second line with _For The Permanent Fixation Of Sophia's Compound and Similar Materials into Rectified Lonsdaleite.³_

Opposite the desk was a mysterious cupboard, for which the Potter discovered a strange and terrible affinity. It was a violet shade of blue. _Ah,_ he thought, _well then, it's the owner's fault. You can't go around painting your cupboards the actual colour of mystery and then complain when people go poking their pneumatic organs in them, that colour of paint should itself be criminal, resulting in a fine for taunting with intrigue._

At right angles to desk and cupboard was the door to the back porch, through the glass of which could be seen the bright yard and its greenery.

"Maybe he's working out back?" said the Longbottom. He opened the door and moved out onto the porch, followed by the Myrtle.

_Oh, _thought the Potter,_ I wish you hadn't gone, now I'm alone with a mysterious seductive cupboard, and me without my handy fingerprint-wiping kit. __Hello, mysterious cupboard! Surely you are not irresistible? _Non! je suis tout à fait irrésistible! _Are you locked? _Oui. _So you are resistible! _Mais non! _Bother! You've got two dials underneath your handles indicating combination lock: tarot symbols on the left, astrological signs on the right. This could be difficult! I could give up here — [ _twiddle twiddle, sword on the left, Pisces on the right_ ] — I'll give up now, I really will, if you're still locked, are you still locked, please say yes? _Non! Je t'aime! _Alas._

The cupboard having been opened, a quick perusal of the shelves inside revealed lots of _things_. _Good, good, wizards need their things, can't do without your things, I personally don't have enough things, I need at least one more thing. Not one of these things of course, that would be unlawful deprivation of thing, they'd haul me off to Scandinavia to stand before a Thing, haha, see what I did there, why am I babbling? what sort of things does Merlin love?_ Merlin loves a ball and jacks; a pair of binoculars; a porcelain astrolabe; tweezers; a yo-yo; a Klein alembic; a _Do Not Disturb_ sign _— aha, so I needn't feel bad about coming in here after all, he could have hung that on the door to keep me out_ _— _a gold model of a foot on a block of wood with a plate on it reading _I am Eudaimonias, Ace of Aces / Look upon my works, ye mighty, and / (continued on next foot);_ _wow,_ the Golden Helmet of Mambrino; earplugs; a stegosaur with a pencil in its mouth; and, on the floor in the back, a nest mostly of shredded burdock inside a broken crystal ball with a misplaced hybrid merlin in it. _Surely the merlin's not nesting in it? No no, smells rodenty, mouse about the house, the rat in the hat, well, the cat's away, and clearly Thing One and Thing Two have been doing a thing, and isn't it a handsome little thing of the merlin persuasion?_

He pulled the hybrid merlin from its trap and while he brushed away bits of a raggy travel brochure from scenic Wyoming† found the figure to made of some plasticine-like material. Its theft-provoking handsomeness was confirmed up close, and that wouldn't do. _You can't stroll off with people's things just because you like them, or even love them deeply at first sight! It's presumptuous and rude and you might get caught._

Fortunately, he had a fourth-year Ravenclaw at hand.

#

"What is _that_?" said the fourth-year Ravenclaw, once he'd stepped out onto the porch.

"A merlin," he said.

"_No._ On your _head._"

He reached up and felt around. "The Golden Helmet of Mambrino."

"Then why does it say _Return To Hospital Wing_ on it?"

"No idea," said the Potter, and doffed his perfectly good headgear. "Myrtle, I crave a boon. Like Daniel. Observe if you will the excellence of the splendid merlin, perhaps it calls you with some mere trace of its appeal to me—"

"You're going to keep it, are you?" said the Longbottom, presumably having noticed the possessive clutch. "You're going to lose us more house points than exist!"

"Certainly not!" said the Potter. "Theft is naughty and more importantly unnecessary. Myrtle! _Multiplicative transfiguration,_ we haven't learned it yet—"

"You're right," she said. "_We_ haven't."

"Ah. Doubling charm...?" It hadn't been in _1001 Household Charms_ for some reason.

"_That_ one I know."

"Would you be so kind?"

She sighed. "Oh, all right...put it on the railing there..."

_Is this a good time to mention the Banach-Tarski Paradox? _said a bit of the Potter's mind. This set off a quick debate that he had a strange feeling he'd heard on many past occasions, and he was momentarily quite glad to be sans memory, so much so he missed the ritual singing response of _You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet_ by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and was left uncertain why so much of him was sighing heavily when his attention returned to the original questioning part just in time to hear it say _It never is_,_ is it,_ just before going off to sulk.

The Potter set the merlin flush left against a pillar. One wand gesture from Myrtle later there were two jolly nice merlins.

"Thank you," he said, and took one merlin in each hand.

"Kind of nice to keep in practice," she said.

He ducked back inside. On his way through the door he thought, _Hang about, __Sophia's Compound, I remember that, that's not wizard stuff...That's a modeling compound named after Sophie Kruse, known to her family as "Fifi", hence Fifi's Modeling Compound, hence Fimo, registered trademark. Also Sculpey™! That's what this is made of! What these are made of. Merlin, you naughty boy. What were you doing nipping about in the 20th century? Shouldn't you have been bringing Arthur back? He's got more letters to answer than Mr Sherlock Holmes!_

_Gaudeamus! for the permanent fixation of Sophia's Compound!_ He paused indecisively, hefting original and duplicate in his hands. _Oh, I've got to see what happens. _He set the merlins down on the desk, opened the glass jar from the Lazy Susan, and carefully dropped the left-hand merlin into it.

It was brown and clay-like...

...and then it was transparent amber crystal.

Simple as that. Blink and you miss it. _Brilliant! doesn't make a lick of sense but I love it anyway!_

Belatedly remembering what he'd come in to do, he placed the remaining merlin in the nest in the broken crystal ball, closed the doors, spun the combination dials to their original position, turned around, turned around, set the combination dials to _sword-fish_, opened the doors, took out the _Do Not Disturb_ sign and hung it on the knob, closed the doors, spun the dials to their original position, turned around, sighed, turned around again, undid everything, gave the duplicate the same _Gaudeamus_ treatment as the original, checked it for defects, put it away, redid everything, picked his new toy off the desk and held it up to the window to admire it.

It was beautiful...

...and it had a crack in it.

An internal crack, invisible in its clayish form, that glittered from the head to the heart. Why didn't the copy have a defect? No, false premise: this is no defect. Look how brilliantly it catches the light. Maybe it's just too fractally-wactally to duplicate...

He tucked the merlin into his inside left pocket next to his heart — _just the one?_ — and bounced toward the door.

_I've got an _action figure!

#

_**11:05 AM** ____Saturday, __at Merlin's front door:_

Mounted to the left of the front porch was a large bell, about four feet wide at the bottom. The Potter reached out and touched it and found it to be vibrating still, even if faintly, and concluded that it was the one that had rung in response to his Alohomoric equivalent to a buzzer press; he couldn't even speculate as to its connection to the actual disengagement of the lock. It had once borne an inscription, but only the letters MDCCLIII remained.

He looked behind himself - the Longbottom was busy inspecting a plant of some kind, and the Myrtle seemed to find it just as interesting. Neither of them was paying attention to him, so he felt free to bend down and give the bell a quick lick. Mostly copper, about a quarter tin, lead, zinc, arsenic, gold and silver — somewhere in his mind a tiny voice objected that he shouldn't be able to do that kind of analysis with a human tongue, but another tiny voice replied _"And what about the Fat Lady of Limbourg, eh?"_ — and with that composition it really shouldn't be as weathered as it was, if 1753 was the date of casting, especially in a closed environment like this. Another anomaly in a pile of anomalies. Someone once said that anomalies tell you what's happening, but he wasn't getting anything yet.

The bell had a crack in it. Maybe some adventurous stranger had rung it too hard, or gotten upset to discover for whom it tolled and took it out in tirade.

He turned his attention to the little hut before him (_do I like a little hut? I think I like a little hut_):: twelve by sixteen feet, white brick, one window in the right-hand side, blue door in the front with small panes of glass in the top arranged in two rows of three, doorknob to the left.

He was standing on a mat that said:

WELL COME  
_SHOES OFF PLEASE_

Behind him, of course, ran thirty feet of stone paving edged with small plants and young trees, leading back to the (now closed) stable entrance door. Or did it? Hard to tell. Maybe the interconnection had automatically disengaged. In any case, the proper direction was now...forward?

He raised his hand and knocked shave-and-a-haircut.

There was no answer by the time the others caught him up.

"Either he's not home or he's lying unconscious on the floor," said the Potter. "Either way I'm going to try the knob."

"I wouldn't," said the Longbottom.

"I accept personal responsibility in the Emperor's name," said the Potter, and turned the unlocked knob and opened the unsecured door - allowing something small and pink to escape.

"What was that thing?" said the Longbottom.

"What thing?" said the Potter, intently examining the interior of the room. "What kind of thing? Animal, vegetable, astral or mineral? Lots of things in the world, ask specific questions."

"Probably a mouse," said the Myrtle.

The Potter doffed his beanie and stepped inside.

Eventually he left his shoes by the door. It's the thought that counts.

#

_**11:01 AM** ____Saturday, __just inside Merlin's _esplumeor_:_

Merlin had traded in his pen for something more sylvan, and quite a lot of it, too; there was a grassy park inserted into the stable.

Just inside the doors was a patio, edged with flowering bushes, with a small fountain in its center. The fountain depicted a hybrid merlin bursting upward from a pool; the effect was driven by water streaming down its sides from invisible downward-directed jets. Rainbows coruscated in its spray. The statue was as transparent as glass, as blue as the sky, and the sun glittered prismatically throughout its interior. On one leg it wore a bell.

On the left ear of the merlin there perched a bird with a fish in its beak; as soon as it saw them it fled, dropping the fish into the pool below.

"There could be a whole river in here," said the Potter, leaning over the rim of the pool to check on the fish, which was apparently none the worse for wear. "Or at least a pond. Or both."

On the base of the fountain was a small brass sign reading _Please leave this place as you would wish to find it._

The bird cackled at them from a distant tree.

"Was that a merlin?" the Longbottom asked.

"A kookaburra, I think," said the Potter, "judging by the rude noises. Sometimes called the laughing jackass. I suppose you could count it as a pony, if you want to stretch for a Merlin reference."

"Do you know everything about everything?" asked the Longbottom.

"'course not," said the Potter. "I don't know what this statue's made of, I don't know what kind of plants these are—"

"Maravilha_,_" said the Longbottom, stepping away from the pretty purple flowers on account of the bees.

"—I don't know where the bell is that rang, I _really_ don't know why we haven't been greeted with open arms, shall we go and see?"

"In for a knut, in for a galleon," said the Myrtle.

"At least I _think_ it's a _Mirabilis dichotoma_," said the Longbottom, walking backwards as they continued past the the rainbow-spraying fountain up the path. "Something odd about it..."

#

_**12:45 PM** ____Saturday, __in an imaginary fluffy white cloud (but actually still under the orange tree)_

_This is brilliant! I should have tried this ages ago. Napping! it could become quite popular._

Shh. Trying to think. Overlooked something.

_But look at the cloud! Think of the polygons! It's all fractally-wactally..._

Forget the cloud. Forget the wandering-lonely-as-a. Remember those eye-poking aquamarines in the Lazy Susan? Weren't they a little _too_ eye-poking? Eye-_itching_, in fact? Suggesting detected magic?

_Oh, is this Rhetorical Question Time? okay, I'm ready, go!_

What's aquamarine?

_Beryl._

And what's beryl?

_Silicate of aluminium and _beryllium_ —_

— and occulting beryllium is used in Time Turners, as your nice Potions Master told you.

_A Time Turner?_ _Strange thing to leave lying on your desktop. I mean, in the kitchen, yeah, instant three-minute eggs with a twist of your spice rack, wait, no, that's ridiculous...either way there'd be too many accidents._

Remember the decorative merlin on top? It had a bell on one leg.

_It did?_

Yes, just like the one on the merlin on the outside of the stable we used to get in, indicating a locking mechanism.

_...wait...Lazy Susan?_

What about it?

_Something about combining a Lazy Susan with a Time Turner seems strangely—strangely famil__—_

_{ Yahh! }_

_What? Is someone screaming in my daydream?_

_Harry? is that you?_

{ Um...yeah. Who else would be screaming in your head? }  
{ Or is it my head? }  
{ _Our_ head. }

_Oh, it's like the Polyphonic Spree in here some nights. You don't know the Polyphonic Spree, never mind. What's up?_

{ That's what _I_ want to know. What just happened out there? }

_Out here? What, you don't see my cloud? I'm in the cloud. I'm having a daydream, never had a daydream before, thought I'd try something new: other dreams and better like the fellow said. What do _you_ see?_

{ I'm in a library. Same as before. }

_If memory serves, the last time we spoke you said, quote, { "During the day it's like you're a dream I'm having. And then at night I wake up just long enough to say hello. And then things get complicated." } If you think libraries are complicated you need to spend more time in them._

{ No, the complicated part comes first. }  
{ Everything goes all geometrical. }  
{ Like one of the screen savers on Dudley's computer. }  
{ Not the one with the toasters.}  
{ Honeycombs first, and a spiraling tunnel, and lots of colours... }

_Those are probably what are called "form constants" — you're sort of looking at your own brain from the inside: your visual cortex is responding to a no-signal condition by interpreting and displaying artifacts of its own structure._

{ ...Oh. }  
{ That's really _weird._ }

_Fun, though! You can get the same results from staring into crystal balls. The stuff dreams are made on. __You could look it all up as long as you're in the library. Or maybe __not, if the library is just a reasonable idiomatic-symbolic interpretation of the interior mind. What's it like?_

{ It's a big mess. }  
{ The floor's covered in burned papers and ash. }  
{ The shelves are mostly empty. }

_...That doesn't sound good. What about the books that are still there? Tell me about them._

{ I can't read any of them, they're just pictures...patterns I don't recognise. }  
{ Except one I found on the floor. }  
{ Sort of like Malfoy's Dragonskine but with a blue cover. }  
{ All the pages are blacked out. There's one line I can read. }

...

{ It's on the last page. Do you want to know what it says? }

No.

_...No. One line of a library is about as out of context as you can get...why are you asking what happened out here? Did something happen in _there_?_

{ That's why I yelled. }  
{ A big light just came on. }  
{ It's shining up the staircase. Should I go see what it is? }

Yes.

_Yes!_

#

_**11:00 AM** ____Saturday, __outside Merlin's _esplumeor_:_

The Potter looked at Merlin's chocolate frog card again, at the picture of the well dressed man with a beard.

He looked up.

"Now this is something _like._"

#

**_SUNDAY:_**_ in bed._

_Sunday the Potter slept in, holding a crystal merlin close to his chest._

_He had only the one dream, of floating over Glastonbury Music Festival in a balloon..._

_#  
_

_{ It's humming! }_

_#  
_

_...attached to a big blue box with a light on the top, while below Brian Wilson played an encore of "Good Vibrations."_

* * *

¹ Or possibly Irving Brecher, but definitely not Ray Bradbury.

² [Just in case you wondered what Merlin's notes to himself look like:]  
_A uniform matrix contains no information  
C'est le temps d'aller voir l'éléphant à vapeur  
nooschisis: the two mirrors that can see each other  
homo similis: pretending man, or perhaps homo dissimilis: man who is unlike himself  
tacet - si quis habet aures audiendi audiat  
des ténèbres vers la lumière ohe saxosae cuniculus ex nihilo fit  
0 __‹_ γ _‹_ 1  
Σ→γ :: τ→∞  
εχΘ = ΘΣ  
εχ = Σ  
τ=∞ ∴ εχ = γ — Q.E.D.  
N.B.: Θ = ΔΕ (agitatio)  
[There will _not_ be a test.]

³ _Ingredients: oleander leaves, oil of peppermint, extract of foxglove, coffee beans, sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate, cobalt chloride, gold flakes, and mineral oil. Contains no chemistry._

† "_Protruding from the rolling prairie that surrounds the Black Hills region, Devils Pyre is a monolith of uncommon igneous rock (phonolite, or sounding stone)..."_


	12. Duology (I)

_(What, another part-one-of-two? After two months? Yes, I'm afraid so. But part two is very close behind! -Ed.)_

#

_Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny._  
— Lao Tzu.

_A child's game hints to an intelligent beholder all the attributes of the Supreme Being._  
— Emerson.

_Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, she turns to favour and to prettiness._  
— Shakespeare.

#

**Duology (I: admitting you have a problem).**

It was not the case that when Thursday arrived it incurred penalties for shoving Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday and the outstanding portion of Sunday out of the way to get there, but it certainly seemed that way, because...well...the Potter had unexpectedly discovered losing track of time through the joys of _minutiae._

Yes, there was probably a reconstituted Dark Lord out there somewhere who needed finding and stopping; yes, the mystery of the third floor needed investigating and solving; yes, the world still didn't make any sense and was, strictly speaking, making even less sense the more he looked into it — but the little things were so much _fun_.

(***)

_Dropping in on the Slytherin table of a morning was_ fun.

_Millicent Bulstrode! any relation to the Mitching Hill Bulstrodes? Mafeking Road? You do have a cousin? Nice people, the Bulstrodes —_

_Splendid to see you, Marcus! The quidditch? This weekend I would suggest staying well out of it, the repercussions are still percussing, though if you had to venture a knut —_

_Pansy Parkinson! pansies are for thoughts, well, Shakespeare says that, I'd have to ask Neville what they mean now — Neville Longbottom —_

_I'm just saying, Draco, if I had your name? Animagus, I'd be on that like syrup on pancakes. Have you ever been to Tokyo?_

(***)

_Chaotic personality pinball was_ fun.

He'd plotted all the first-year Gryffindors on axes of ability, patience, sociability and available down-time and worked out how to pair them up for optimal academic outcomes — as it turned out, sending everyone to Hermione for help was not actually the most efficient arrangement — and then set about nudging them into those pairs. The feedback-loop complications were fascinating. Some people were no longer on speaking terms and were showing dangerous signs of ending up married in another ten years. The whole project might take _weeks._

(***)

_Being helpful was_ fun.

"I suppose I should thank you," said Myrtle Smith when she turned up at the Gryffindor table Sunday night.

He stopped counting his Quiddich bet winnings (dear me, what a carefully wagered knut could yield). "You're a student again?"

She nodded. "I've been in the Headmaster's office all afternoon watching him confer with people by fireplace. Wizengamot, Ministry of Magic — he mentioned you by name twice, did you know you're really good for making people drop objections?"

"Am I?"

"Yes. It still took forty-five minutes to sort out my age. I'm now classified as a provisionally alive ward of Hogwarts, with the Grey Lady acting as my legal guardian until graduation."

"Oh, that's brilliant," he said.

"I suppose," she said. "Um..."

"What?"

"Would you mind coming back with me to the Ravenclaw table? I don't know anyone and you're really good for making people drop objections."

"Not a problem," he said, sweeping coins into a bag. "Come to think of it, I have a book to return to the Ravenclaw prefect..."

(***)

_Learning random things was_ fun.

"I _tried_ to get in to Ravenclaw," said the Potter. "I really did, but the Sorting Hat wouldn't let me in. It said something about Ravenclaw not needing to lose any more towers."

"Ah," said the Ravenclaw prefect (Lauren Spiegel, seventh year; favorite dessert, Eccles cakes). "Yes. Rupert Lomperd's little debacle, long time ago. It's an interesting story, though the details are — ahem — lost to outsiders, but did you know that our current tower was originally Hufflepuff's? After the Lomperd incident the Puffs very kindly took us in — the historical us, I mean — until the basement was fitted out. Then they donated us the tower and moved downstairs.

"Rather clever of them, really; it's apparently far less drafty down there."

(***)

_Just _watching_ was _fun.

"Right," said Ron, history book and eyes closed, "um...in...479...the Greeks defeated the Tiresians at the fountain of Salmacis?"

"_No_," said Hermione.

"Am I getting warmer?"

"Well," she said semi-reluctantly, "you didn't mention Arthulfred the Unready this time..."

"What's this?" said Fred Weasley to a clipboard-bearing Seamus Finnegan.

"A petition to the Wizengamot," said Seamus.

"We're collecting signatures," said Dean Thomas.

"Dungbombs are pure evil and should be internationally banned," said Seamus.

"What's got into you two?" said an incredulous George.

"_Education!_" said Dean.

"Oh, come on," said George, "you can't let yourselves succumb to _that_..."

(***)

_Education was_ fun. _Hogwarts was all about education. Such as the education that came of nutting a football through a window late Saturday afternoon—_

"A _stained glass_ window," continued Percy the Perfect Prefect, waving the blue sheet of paper that itemized the punishment of Thomas and Finnegan. "A quite _historic and educational_ stained glass window. Depicting the Magical Thing of the Faeroe."

"Give it a rest, Perce, it was hideous," said George.

"It looked better _after_ it broken," said Fred. "Like a kaleidoscope construction set."

"Magical Thing of the Faeroe?" said the Potter. "I'm sorry I missed it."

"You've seen it," said George with informative detachment. "First floor, near the statue of Pinchas the Pious. The one that looked like a dull day in Parliament."

Percy sniffed. "That window depicted one of the great moments in Scandinavian magical legislation," he said. "The regulation of the trade in Self-Counting Sheep and Wishing Fishes. Consequently, the punishment is appropriately severe!" He waved the blue paper in the air — it went _twap —_ and then filed it in his not-a-Dragonskine organiser.

The iniquitous duo lowered their heads onto the table.

"Buck up!" said George, thumping Seamus on the back.

"Count yourselves lucky!" said Fred, doing the same for Dean. "Helping Harry mop can't be that bad. You'll get used to the sleep deprivation after a while."

"If Filch were here you'd be scrubbing the Trophy Room," said George.

"With your own _toothbrush_."

"Unless you swiped your brother's," they added simultaneously.

While they exchanged stares, the Potter — who incidentally thought that cleaning up as a punishment was a manifest insult to the custodial profession — spread butter on his cold toast. The butter melted anyway. (Hogwarts!) "Um, correct me if I'm wrong, Percy, but isn't the odd broken window the sort of thing _reparo_ was invented for?"

Percy peered up from behind a copy of _Everybody's Prefect_ magazine. "Well of course it is," he said. "And Professor Dumbledore already fixed it. I think he got some of the eyes backwards. But the point is that you don't need to fix what you never broke. Incidentally, Potter, is there a reason you missed breakfast?"

"Ah," said the Potter, "well. I was having that dream where you're back in school, but every time I woke up I _was_ back in school, so I'd go back to sleep in order to wake up. It got a bit vicious-circular."

(***)

_Doing things over again from a different point of view was_ fun.

"Gentlemen," he said to Thomas and Finnegan once the lightly snoring portrait of Marguerite du Mont had creaked shut, "you're about to enter the most important area of magic: _fighting entropy._

"The universe is falling to bits around us, and it's our task to put it back in order again with nothing in our arsenal but sticky-back plastic and/or spellotape. And hot water and magical surfactants. Also, mops. Mops are key. Bullet point: _mops key_. Here, have some mops. And buckets. Now, why are you not rejoicing?"

(***)

_Playing chess with Draco Malfoy was_ fun.

"Your winnings, sir," said the Potter, depositing a stack of Weasley-rebranded grey-market chocolate frogs before the Malfoy. (One carefully wagered knut had paid for the lot — _with_ a knut left over. Quidditch gambling! it was like unto a financial _perpetuum mobile_.) "_And_ one satsuma." He added it to the pile. (The other two had gone to Ron and Hermione.)

"What's this for?" said the Malfoy, regarding the _(darling clementine?) (dreamy tangerine?)_ _Citrus unshiu_ with suspicion.

"Interest," said the Potter.

"Ah," said the Malfoy. "Father says gentlemen don't charge gentlemen interest." (Off to one side, Crabbe and Goyle exchanged looks of puzzled alarm.) He picked up the orange, tossed it in the air and caught it. "Perhaps I'll take it as credit towards tonight's _impending_ loss..."

(*)

"What did you think of Defense Against The Dark Arts?" said the Potter, moving his rook.

"Ten minutes of class crammed into an hour. Checkmate in six moves."

"Did you read much of the book?"

"Flipped through it. Already knew most of it except for the spells, and we probably won't get to most of them. I'll probably have a tutor in summer."

"Not much of a coursebook, is it? I mean — what's the theme? What's the —"

_Don't say _weltanschauung.

(Why, what's wrong with _weltanschauung?)_

You don't throw weltanschauung _at an eleven-year-old! He couldn't spell it. I'm not sure _I _can spell it. How many w's again?_

"— overarching principle? It's all heterogeneous.

"Today's _Daily Prophet_ letters page is full of hags complaining about the price of pickles alongside demands to silver-bullet werewolves on sight, while on the opposing page is an ad offering _blood pops by owl post,_ and on the page after _that_ is a review of a book called _Rassling with Red Caps_ that apparently indicates you'd be better off paddling with piranha.

"But in the book, hags, werewolves, vampires, Red Caps, they're all just lumped together as Dark and given two thousand words each.

"More people die of gnome bites than red cap attacks, why aren't _they_ in the book?"

"Checkmate in — _gnome bites_?" (Look at that crinkly forehead. I _love_ that crinkly forehead.)

"I read that somewhere. Or maybe I imagined it, the point is — you've got to explain _why_ this is so, what these things have in common with each other that they don't share with _any_ dangerous magical animal. Define your terms.

"Justify your _title_, for heaven's sake. I mean — _dark forces?_ which dark forces? how dark forces? Gravity: light or dark? Does electromagnetism have a moral component? And if they only mean _magic_ — they were spuriously pluralising just to avoid calling the book _The Dark Side of the Force_ — explain why magic's different!"

Draco moved a hand toward a knight and then took it away again. "Father says magic is magic. People make light and dark judgements based on who the winner is."

"Okay, that's something; that's moving away from magic and toward human psychology. If you want to teach people how to defend themselves against the Dark Arts, whatever they are—" _yes, where _does _the Art part come in?_ —_"explain _the essence of Dark psychology! You can't just give us a chapter explicating the history and practice of the Curse of the Bogies and say _draw your own conclusions—"_

_Why not? After all, there does seem to be an emerging theme here._

"—well, yeah, okay, you _could_, it's sort of a one-question Dark test, isn't it, _I want to curse people with traumatic bogeys_, tick yes or no..."

Draco blinked. "Did you just suggest that..." he pointed discreetly at the Scar... "Dark wizards are simply big fans of copious nasal discharge? Because better you than me."

"An interesting idea," said the Potter. "Maybe the book makes more sense than I thought." He started ticking off on his fingers.

"Vampirism is spread by way of broken skin," he said. "Ditto lycanthropy. Ditto zombieism. Thus, all three suggest infection. Hags have unusual numbers of warts: viral infection. Red caps are repelled by _lumos supra violaceus,_ same treatment as for fungal infection.

"Grindelwald's _Größerewohlism_ was exploitative psychology, mental illness spread memetically; insanity as mind-virus.

"So, Curse of the Bogies is an entirely apt metaphor. Dark forces are _disease_. And misery loves company. So people who get sick with evil, rather than go to bed and stay there until they get better, want to go around smearing it on every available knob."

"O," said Draco Malfoy, looking down at the tops of the pawns, "kay."

"So to defend ourselves against the Dark Arts—" _still haven't nailed down what Art has to do with it; mem: come back later_ — "we should think like...er, Madam Pomfrey," he concluded. "Also, brush after every meal."

"Yyyyes." Malfoy abruptly stood up from behind the table. "Excuse me a moment, I have to go do something."

(*)

He returned with slightly soapy hands and what turned out to be the last page of a letter. "I'd nearly forgotten about this. Letter from Father. The post-script is addressed to you, more or less."

_Regarding Iphitus Malfoy, kindly inform Master Potter that we would be pleased to hear that the Gryffindors had finally remembered the one left behind, but that, regrettably, such does not appear to be the case._

"—Are you sure you want to sacrifice your king _now_? You've still got two moves left before you have to lose. It's only eight-thirty."

The Potter contemplated the dismal board, and then looked up hopefully. "Have you ever played Mornington Crescent?"

(***)

_Sneaking off to do illicit experiments in the Potions lab in the early morn was_ fun. (Upon checking his strangely perfumy robes after waking up on Sunday he'd found that he'd acquired souvenirs from Merlin's _esplumeor_: in addition to three spicy-sweet satsumas from the grove, there were some violet-blue flowers with helmet-shaped hoods: monkshood. Or wolfsbane, if you like. Evidently he intended to use the latter to find out what Professor Snape had meant by _the __oleic dispersal enhancement effects of aconites_.)

"Wait — are you leaving us on our own?" said Seamus.

"Not at all," said the Potter, retrieving a mysterious parcel from a nearby alcove. _"Regardez!"_

He removed the parcel's tea-cosy cover to reveal a wire cage beneath. Enormous amber eyes stared out from within it. A beak clicked disapprovingly. Had there been any Weasley twins present they might have said, _good grief, a flying Mrs Norris with a 270-degree rotating head,_ but there weren't.

"You're leaving us with your _owl?_" said Seamus, almost as though it were worse.

"Her _name_ is _Hedwig_," sniffed the Potter. "She will accompany you, perching on any pallid busts she happens to find, ever alert for the call to action." He opened the door of the cage and let the owl free. "If you run into trouble, she'll come get me. Right dear?" Hedwig inclined her head gravely.

"You're nipping off to raid the kitchen, aren't you," said Dean.

"Certainly not!" said the Potter. "_I_ will be working up a cold sweat mopping the dark dungeon level where they store up the damp against a sunny day."

And he did — after taking time out to verify the oleic dispersion enhancement effects of aconites reported by Professor Snape — with ringing ears, because the O.D.E.E. of A. reported by P.S. could make the largest cauldron in the lab go _bong_ like unto the clock tower main bell under the right conditions. (Fortunately the clock tower main bell had been striking six at the time.)

A small amount of liquid oil soap from the supply closet, add aconites invoking them under their differing True and Not True Names (he still wasn't sure whether "monkshood" was True, or "wolfsbane"), perform a sink-trap cleaning charm, _kerbango._

He could only wonder how Snape had come up with such a hypothesis. Well, he did know his Potions. Clever man, shame his expertise has never done him any good. Or anyone else for that matter.

He paused in mid-mop-stroke.

_Perhaps it can..._

Doing favors promised to be _fun._

_(***)_

_Putting Harry Potter back in charge of his own body was_ — important.

Experiment one: dormitory empty, everyone gone to lunch. Set parchment and ink and quill on bedside table, _has someone absconded with the single chair in this room?!_ _yes_, oh well, sit on trunk, _knock knock knock_ on inside of head, wake up in there.

Harry, he thought, _as you may have noticed, I am running your body. This will not do. It is inconsiderate and rude and steps must be taken._

On the parchment he printed _Harry Potter, _made a dotted line under it, and then made an X.

_That's your name._ Quite possibly your true name. _I want you to write it._ _This is important, because signing your own name is an assertion of identity and therefore the metaphysical key to dislodging me from your head. Give it your best shot._

_..._

Nothing. The writing hand lay on the table as though it hadn't even heard him.

Hang about...writing hand. Harry's left-handed, wand-wise, and a quill is just another kind of wand.

_You're a wizard, Harry. Sign your name._

The wand hand reached over and took the pen from the still slack writing hand, and signed _Harry Potter_ on the dotted line — with the penmanship of Charlie Brown on muscle relaxant, but you can't have everything...

_Hmm._ Wand fixation? _Okay, we can work with that._ Take out wand, hold the wand in the writing hand, _sit_ on the wand hand.

_Give me a_ lumos, _Harry._

After a momentary hesitation, light flared. He contemplated the glowing wand in the writing hand and smiled.

_Hmm_ again! _Toes are kind of prehensile,_ he thought, and kicked off his trainers.

(*)

_Harry Potter: he might not be able to_ stand _on his own two feet, but he can cast spells with _both of them!

(***)

_Meaningless terms were_ fun.

Ever since Merlin's _esplumeor_ he'd been having...non-insights.

He'd be innocently playing with his winged merlin action figure with a crack in it, watching flecks of light scatter and rainbow from its beautiful imperfection, and _poit_, there would be a non sequitur in his head — not spoken or heard, not even imagined, just a raw phrase plunked down in his mind, with never a greasy newspaperful of fried explanation to go with it. _Demat gun, _for example, or _vortex dissolution._

His favourites thus far were _particle disseminator _and _black light explosion._

Particle disseminator suggested a man standing on a street corner with a box labeled FREE SAMPLES, handing out particles to passersby.

And _black light explosion!_ What a splendid phrase. The only kind of black light he had a definition for was the kind that let you get the most out of your Jimi Hendrix posters; he'd decided it must be a Seventies fusion-funk-prog band.

#

Thursday morning, already in progress:

"I was really hoping we'd have learnt _wingardium leviosa_ by now," fretted Hermione, who was one of a collection of breakfast-bound first-year Gryffindors rattling downstairs like a handful of slightly panicky ball-bearings in the wake of the sudden notice-board announcement that flying lessons would Begin This Afternoon.

"No worries," said a passing Fred cheerfully. "Hardly anyone dies the first day."

"Generally nothing worse than a broken neck," added an equally en-route George.

"Anyway, Madam Pomfrey's got _loads_ of experience treating all forms of blunt trauma. Thoracic fracture, lumbar burstage—"

"—spinal cord gelignification — comes with the territory, really."

"She'll have you all up and around in less than a week."

"Most likely."

"Two or three, tops."

"You're both such a comfort," said Hermione to their departing backs.

"Always happy to help!"

#

"Gran never let me _near_ a broomstick," said Neville, watching butter re-congeal on his toast. "I'm probably the only pureblood wizard in school ever to use a Hoover."

"No you're not," said Ron.

"Oh, yeah?" said Neville, brightening by at least one lumen.

The Potter listened to their conversation with one ear while giving the other to Hermione, who was lecturing to anyone who would listen from a booklet of flying tips she'd ordered from the Stationery Office of the Ministry of Magic _("The broomstick _wants _to stay in the air, so allow _it _to guide _you_...")_, all the while expanding his mind with fine literature.

"You're reading comic books," observed Myrtle, who had drifted over from Ravenclaw.

All right, yes, it was true: fine literature consisted of a found-in-the-hallway copy of _Martin Miggs The Mad Muggle_ Nr 616, tucked into a borrowed-from-the-library copy of _Proceedings Of The Wizengamot _Volume 240 Nr 5, itself concealed in his bought-by-Harry copy _of Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them_.

"Of course I am," he replied, "you can learn a lot about a culture from comic books."

This particular issue of _Martin Miggs_ was about Martin being comedically possessed by the spirit of Herpo the Foul and the efforts of the Muggle Control Bureau to stop him realising it, even though the process had caused him to sprout a third eyeball in the middle of his forehead (with a very bushy eyebrow). The proofreading was terrible; half the time the villain's name was written _Harpo the Fool_.

Still, it was more informative than _Proceedings of the Wizengamot_, the main curiosity in which was how anyone managed to stay awake while proofreading it, given that it consisted mainly of paragraphs like:

_In the statement to be released following the meeting, the Committee made relatively small retrospective modifications to the language of its previous post-meeting statement, including acknowledgement of previous retrospective modifications to previous statements as well as modifications that had been contemplated but discarded. In light of the importance of ongoing concerns, members discussed whether to include a reference to unresolved issues, but decided to refrain. Similarly, one member raised a question about whether the statement language adequately captured the importance of the Committee's ongoing assessments, but the Committee decided to maintain the current language pending the review planned for the next meeting._

"I used to read Martin Miggs," Myrtle said vaguely. "They were making fun of Grindelwald, last issue I saw."

"And they got away with it?" said the Potter, reaching for another perfect piece of toast. (One of many nice things about Hogwarts: Hogwarts toast, which put the _mmm_ in _minutiae. _Always perfect golden-brown, never burnt. He hated burnt toast.)

"Grindelwald sympathisers generally burned books before they read them."

The comic's pages riffled in the breeze caused by the sudden arrival of morning mail. Nothing for him — he hadn't written anyone yet — but there was a delivery for Neville.

"It's a package from Gran," said Neville, giving his now-cold toast to the delivery owl before attacking the packing tape with a steel spork.

"Is that good or bad?" asked the Potter.

"Any chance it's biscuits?" said Ron hopefully.

"Only skinny boys get bikkies," said Neville in the voice of an elderly lady grump, and continued wrestling with his package. "It's probably replacement socks. Or clean pants. I hope so, I'm going to need them after flying lessons — _grah!_"

The box abruptly tore open and its contents flew into the air. Something bounced onto the floor with a glassy _tink tink tink;_ it rolled under the table and up against the Potter's foot.

He leaned down and picked up a clear glass ball slightly larger than a marble. In his buttery fingers it immediately lit up in flickering red, quietly sputtering and crackling like a fluorescent bulb in a faulty fixture, _k'kt kt'kk k'kt_. "What's this?"

"It's a Remembrall," said Neville dully, looking up from a letter that had been in the package. "Well, it was. I just got it and it's already broken. Straight out of the box."

"Remembrall?" said the Potter, watching the light flicker erratically. "It remembers things for you?" _Mem: see if there's a catalogue available for this sort of thing._

"It lights up when you've forgotten something," said Hermione, who was reading the sheet of directions upside down from across the table. "It's not supposed to blink..."

Neville didn't seem to hear; he just stared down at the packing material strewn over the tabletop.

"I. Hate. Being..._clumsy._"

He didn't so much say it as have the words crushed out of him. Myrtle patted him sympathetically on the head. Through the head.

"Look at it this way," suggested the Potter, contemplating the Remembrall. "If dexterity is a conserved property, you just donated someone, somewhere, a graceful moment."

Neville didn't say anything, or even sigh.

The Potter looked at the Remembrall, still flickering; he looked at Neville; he looked back at the Remembrall.

Suddenly it graveled him. All of it.

"What _good_ is it?" he said. "Of course I've _forgotten_ something. Everyone's forgotten _something_. Goes without saying. What's the point of an _aide-mémoire_ that just discreetly points out you've forgotten something without telling you what it _is_?" The only reason to do _that_ would be if you wanted to be reminded that you'd forgotten something you don't want to remember just yet, _and in that case she should have sent it to me, not Neville —_

Oh. Hello unexpected insight.

_— but it's not _for_ me, it's for _him_!_

_He knows his faults! he doesn't need to be reminded of them! he __needs to know how to_ fix _them and _this can't help!

_This is nothing more than an insult._

The Remembrall disappeared into his closing hand.

_I hate –_

Wrong word. Not hate. Hate was for burnt toast...

_I **despise** cruelty._

His grip crushed down—

—and suddenly his fist was empty and his nails were cutting into his palm, except that it _wasn't his palm —_ _oh no no no,_ _please don't have felt that — _blood dripping onto the tablecloth —

"_Hey!_ You could have hit me with that!"

It was Draco Malfoy. (_Dragonskine under his arm, place marked with finger. Discussing homework with Snape at high table?_ _P 0.5.) _He stalked into view, holding the Remembrall high with his free hand, as though he had just caught it on its way down toward his head, which of course he had. "Which of you leonine losers is responsible?"

The Potter raised his guilty hand. "Sorry..." _Sorry isn't enough._

Pause.

"You want to be careful with your toys, Potter," said Draco, looking at the hand rather than the face.

_(Yes: you should be careful with your toys. People might take them. But this one's not mine...)_

"I should keep this. Maybe I will..." Attracted by red light, Draco looked down at the Remembrall. It was glowing steadily. "Why's it lit up like this? What is it?"

"Apparently it's a Remembrall. It's saying you've forgotten something," said the Potter.

"Forgotten what?"

"Nobody knows," said the Potter. "It's completely useless. But it's not mine, you could have it with my blessing if it were." His undamaged hand pulled the bleeding one down into his lap and pushed a clean napkin into it.

Draco hesitated, and then flicked the Remembrall toward the table with his thumb. It landed on the Potter's plate (the Remembrall, not the thumb) and rotated slowly through the syrup.

"I'd say you were a bloody idiot," said Draco Malfoy, "but I think you already know that." He turned and walked away.

_I know who I am,_ thought the Potter, clutching his red-stained napkin.

_I'm a failure._


	13. Duology (II)

_(I'm calling this one only a week overdue. Well, maybe two. And at last the owl comes into play! -Ed.)_

_#_

_The child's toys and the old man's reasons  
Are the fruits of the two seasons.  
If the sun and moon should doubt,  
They'd immediately go out._  
— William Blake

#

**Duology (II: Admitting you have a solution).**

_I should — I ought — If I — Thing — I need to — I really must — If only..._

"Of course it hurts, it's cactus needles. Didn't Professor Sprout tell you cacti are paranoid?"

_"Yeeeees...ouch."_

The Potter found himself sitting on a bench looking at an educational poster of the gastrointestinal tract.

_Where?_

Hospital wing, obviously. All school-nurse-office walls were covered in educational posters in the hopes that someone might inadvertently learn something. This one was fully animated, though happily not in detail.

_How?_

Well, that was obvious: he hadn't been paying attention. Huh. He'd always wondered how you did that. Of course, he still didn't know; what a pity he hadn't been paying attention...of course, if he'd ever learned to pay attention he wouldn't be here at all.

_Useless as the appendix, that's me...no, that's a slur on the vermiform process..._

"And what brings _you_ here, young man?" said Madam Pomfrey, leaning into his field of vision. (Her previous client gave him a curious look on his way out. He had a bandage on his nose.)

_Direct question. Can work with that._

He raised the hand and let the red-stained napkin fall away to show the four crescent moons he'd made in the palm. "Er," he managed.

"Hmm," said the nurse, and turned the hand over to inspect the nails. "Clean fingernails, that's a sight for sore eyes." She pointed into her office. "Sink, please."

He stepped up to the bendy faucet while she deposited a small collection of freshly-extracted cactus spines in a glassine envelope; when she turned back to him he was expecting magic, but got soap, water, paper towel, a streak of Mercurome and a gauze bandage.

"You look like you need to remember this," said Madam Pomfrey, taping the bandage in place.

"Yes," he said, and let his gaze crawl away in embarrassment, across her desk, over the books stacked on it, and out the open door.

"Keep it clean," she said, "keep it dry. Not to worry, Mr Potter, you won't have any additional scars. Will there be anything else?"

"Would you mind if I sat on your waiting bench a bit?" he said. "Apparently I've a thing about blood."

"So long as you're not late to class, you may indulge yourself," said Madam Pomfrey, and set about returning her things to their proper place.

"Thank you."

He went outside and sat down again and stared at the poster and let his mind go blank.

_Blood..._

_Seen enough blood._

_No more. Not one_ drop.

(*)

_{ What's a vermiform process? }_

Hm?

_{ Vermiform process, what is it? }_

Oh. Vermiform — worm-shaped; process — projection, in the sense of a continuation. Another term for the appendix.

_{ And it's not useless? }_

What, the appendix? No, it's sort of a quiet room for intestinal flora, out of the noise and rush.

_{ Flora? What, there are flowers in my intestine? }_

Plants, unicellular, sure. The human intestine, it's an interesting tube — hosts a lot of digestive intermediaries, symbiotic organisms that help you live on food you couldn't use otherwise. You've got a whole ecology inside you. If it gets washed out, which can happen, you could die, so there's the appendix as an emergency backup, a safe hiding place to repopulate from.

_{ Cool. Now tell me about hypnotic acupuncture. }_

(Hypnotic acupuncture? where had _that_ come from? Oh, that book on Madam Pomfrey's desk, hardly even noticed that. That's interesting too!)

Well, did you ever sit around scratching yourself and discover that when you poke a certain spot on your back you get a sympathetic twinge on your leg? It's the way your nervous system's wired. Technically it's a network artifact. If we were in a normal school we'd be messing with computers and I could show you how to press three keys to get a spurious fourth keypress. Difference being, on one hand it's a typographical error and on the other it's the emergence of a branch of Chinese medicine.

Anyway, you just poke yourself all over and take notes of unexpected occurrences, useful coincidences. You find out that you can stick a needle in your scalp and block an earache, that sort of thing.

But the nervous system, well, it's all brain in the end, so why not skip the needle and just use hypnosis?

—Oh, hello, Harry! What are you doing here? Am I daydreaming? I must be. I hope I'm not late to Transfiguration...

_{ Plenty of time. Look, I've been thinking... }_

You have! Oh, that's excellent! You're really asserting your identity if you've been using your brain same time as me! What were you thinking about?

_{ I'm Harry Potter, but who are you? What's your name? }_

—Dunno. It seems odd to give a bundle of vague sensory perceptions a name, as the man said. Or even a bundle of spectacularly incisive ones, not to put too fine a point on it. Do you think I need one?

_{ Well, yeah — if me asserting my identity is important to getting you out of my head, isn't asserting your identity important too? To pull in the opposite direction? }_

There is that...not that there's anything _wrong_ with just being an attitude with a database...

_{ So I'm thinking I'll call you Bob. }_

What!? _Why?_

_{ Wasn't Rupert Bear found in a train station? }_

—That was _Paddington_! That's why they _called_ him Paddington! _And_ I woke up in King's Cross. I'd have to be King, and believe me, I can wait. _Rupert!_ Why not Harold? no, wait, no, you're using that one. How about Claude? or John Hamilton? Or Dennis? —No, not Dennis, we don't need any of that. (_Rupert's a fair cop, to be honest. After all, the walrus was Paul.)_ Walrus—? Look, internal monologue, would it kill you to give me a footnote once in a while? I can't keep up with you and I _am_ you. _(And we are unanimous in that!)_

—Yeah, okay, Rupert, you can call me Rupert.

(*)

His daydream started to break up, and he found that _someone_ had planted a rather smug grin on his face. Their face? The face.

_Harry James Potter! you just chess-with-Malfoyed me, didn't you? Blimey! But why?_

_{ Because you're no fun when you mope. }_

_But Harry, I _hurt _you._

_{ ...Are you serious? }_

_Of course I'm serious, I'm prickly-pear serious._

_{ I grew up with Dudley Dursley, you git! I think I've still got _teeth marks _somewhere. Of course it hurt, it's what you get for stopping me biting my nails. Now stop moping, _Rupert_. }_

_Yeah. Yeah, I'll do that._

_Mopping's better..._

_#_

Thursday's Transfiguration class came and went —

[Professor McGonagall was teaching the Utopian Alphabet, which served as a sort of vocabulary of transfigurational logic. The approach was like computer programming: associate small ideas with symbols, string the symbols together into programs, hey presto, big results even when you couldn't think complex thoughts in themselves. The major differences were that the computer was inside your head and you never had to wait for the printer.]

— and lunch arrived, along with Hedwig bearing a letter.

"Why are _you_ getting letters from the Wizengamot?" said Draco Malfoy, snatching it from his hands.

"It's not from the Wizengamot, Mr Grabbyhands, it's from the _Librarian_ of the Wizengamot," he said, and leaned around Malfoy to read it from its current position. "Dear Mr Potter, in response to your inquiry of Tuesday the etcetera, _ahhhh_, regret to inform you such archival materials may be viewed only in person, except in cases of special research projects with the signatures of teacher and school librarian...transfigurational copies unlikely to be approved in the case of—"

"_Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle?_" yelped Draco Malfoy. "You wrote to the Library of the Wizengamot because you wanted to read —" He shoved the letter back into the Potter's hands.

"It was worth a shot," said the Potter in wounded tones, tucking the letter into his robes. "I mean, if they get copies of everything published in wizarddom." Which they do. "Now, as I was saying: are you going to accept my apology for nearly beaning you with a Remembrall this morning, or do I have to grovel? Don't make me grovel, cos I'm momentarily blanking on the definition."

"_Grufelinge_," said Terry Beaconsfield, around a mouthful of bagel.

"That's it!" said the Potter. "Old English for face-plant."

"_Or," _said the Beaconsfield after swallowing_,_ "to crawl on the belly like a snake."

"I could do!" _It's so Slytherin! Wait, better not say _that_._

Draco Malfoy said, "_I accept your apology!_ Go away!"

"Thank you," said the Potter, touching him lightly on the shoulder. "—Ooo, are you going to eat that last kipper? No? May I? —Incidentally, Captain Flint, did you see Malfoy make that catch? He might be a good match for Seeker in the future..."

He returned to the Gryffindor table, feeding Hedwig the kipper on the way.

_Bit_ of a disappointment about Martin Miggs, but at least he'd determined that things could be had from the Wizengamot Library under some circumstances — and the things he _really_ wanted to read, he would have had to obtain _indirectly _regardless...

He glanced toward the Ravenclaw table, where Myrtle was helping firsties with their homework-due-that-afternoon. She seemed pleased to be useful; she'd be more useful yet.

#

Thursday afternoon, when it arrived, was nothing like as calm as the Brian Eno album.

He'd run straight from Herbology to Flying Lessons —

[Discounting the detour brought on by a sudden need to inspect Hogwarts's security arrangements. The school's sewage-treatment outspout was near the greenhouses, and the iron grate of the maintenance-space tunnel was right next to it; was the grate visible? He hoped it wasn't, because it would be a terrible security hole if it _was_, and then he'd have to _report_ it, and then he'd have to explain how he _knew_ about it. He'd found the outspout straight away, surrounded by wall-hugging scarlet creepers, and happily there was nothing under the creepers to either side but solid stone. Or at least something that _looked_ like solid stone, if slightly eye-itching. It even _felt_ like solid stone. But whoever had invented that form of camouflage hadn't thought quite as far as taste tests, and _blech_, cold iron.]

— and now here he was, confronted with a warped stick with a bundle of scraggly twigs strapped to a randomly-chosen end of it, and listening to Madam Hooch the flying instructor tell him that to get said stick-with-twigs to leap obediently off the ground and carry him safely and comfortably into the stratosphere he just needed to give it a firm talking-to.

_Well, why not?_ thought the Potter. _What's a broom but a good stiff mop?_

_"Up!"_ he said, in accordance with instructions.

The broomstick immediately failed to leap into his outstretched right hand.

No surprise there. It was an open question whether flying-type broomsticks would respond to non-wizards – and judging by the results half the class were getting, whether they would even respond to wizards was a question by no means closed.

To his right, Neville Longbottom was getting nowhere; to his left, Hermione Granger was getting next to nowhere; in front of him —

_— no, wait. Stop._ Just because the teacher said _extend your right hand_ didn't mean that was the correct hand to use. Neville was left-handed, and wand-wise so was Harry...

He raised his right hand higher to attract the attention of Madam Hooch, who was sweeping about like a falcon in human form.

"Yes, Potter?"

"What if you're sinister rather than dexter, ma'am?"

"Then switch hands, boy, switch hands," she said.

He switched hands.

_Everyone_ who wasn't getting results switched hands.

_"Up!"_

And — raggedly, one by one — up came the broomsticks. Neville's was dead last, but he looked like he'd just won the Tour de France.

Er.

Well.

Actually, no, Neville's wasn't dead last. There was _one_ still on the ground...

_Alas,_ thought the Potter, regarding his dead stick; _no flying for Rupert_. He detached control from his left arm. _Take it away, Harry. It's a wand, not a mop._

"Up!" he said, and _holy electromagnets Batman t_he world went day-dreamy.

_{ Yeah, I'll take it from here, }_ said Harry Potter.

"Now, grips and mounting," Madam Hooch was saying; he was sure he had missed about a paragraph of instruction there, but H. J. Potter had _not_. "Not _that_ way, Mr Malfoy, you'll break your thumb."

_Row, row, row your boat —_

"It follows your cues; lean back, up; forward, down; _violent control moves are neither necessary nor desirable_."

— _gently down the stream —_

"On my command, which will be in the form 3 - 2 - 1 - _mark_, kick off hard."

— _merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily —_

"3 - 2 - 1 -"

— and suddenly he snapped back to full attention _because Neville Longbottom had gone on 1._

Not intentionally. Like a rocket.

He was already higher than the astronomy tower.

"_Lean forward, boy!_" Madam Hooch shouted.

Bad idea, he'd overcorrect and plow straight into the ground. _She ought to be using magic of some kind._ Like what? _I don't know, _accio student _or something._

Come on, Hooch, _wingardium leviosa_ the boy.

Use a softening charm on the ground.

Do something, this happens all the time, don't just stand there looking stricken.

She just stood there looking stricken.

_Good grief, woman, what are you trying to teach in this lesson? and why didn't you start us off on broom simulators?_

He took the deepest breath he could — just as Neville parted company with his broomstick some two hundred feet above the ground.

_Ooh, I'm going to do something! I wonder what it is?!_

(Well, it's perfectly logical and obvious, isn't it? This is a teachable moment.)

_It is? What's the educational purpose of falling? What do we learn by hitting the ground hard?_

(Us? That pain hurts. But this isn't _about_ us —)

— _oh, right, this is about _Neville Longbottom!

"BOUNCE, NEVILLE!" yelled the Potter.

(*)

Neville bounced.

He bounced several times, in fact, before rolling to a stop at, and indeed on, the iron-toed boots of Professor McGonagall.

"Good afternoon, Mr Longbottom," said the Professor, giving him the eyebrow raised and fixed.

"Er, hello, Professor," said Neville, hurriedly rolling off again. He smiled up at her feebly. "Just thought I'd—"

"Half a point from Gryffindor if you say 'drop in', young man," said the Professor, examining a distant cloud with apparent interest.

Neville swallowed and got up off the ground and dusted himself off, apparently none the worse for wear.

"That's an intriguing talent," said Professor McGonagall, redirecting her gaze to the boy of unexpected ability. "If it's consistent you might consider trying out for Chaser in the future. Gryffindor could use a player who can hit the ground hard without being sidelined."

"I—I'll think about it, sir! Ma'am."

"Very good, Longbottom; you may return to your lesson."

Neville started to salute, realized what he was doing and turned it into a sort of wave before running back to his position in line.

Madam Hooch had finally done an _accio broomstick._

"It wasn't really my fault, Ma'am," Neville began, "it just sort of took off with me—"

"Say no more, Mr Longbottom," said Madam Hooch, examining the juddering twigs minutely. "Minerva, have you a moment?"

The two teachers receded a bit, diagnosing the broomstick while Neville returned to his place and the rest of the class chatterboxed in low tones.

"Well!" drawled Draco Malfoy, "if you want to find the quidditch pitch, just follow the bouncing boy..."

Some Slytherins laughed dutifully, but Neville didn't seem to hear. "That was _weird_," he said. "I didn't know I could _do_ that!"

"Of course you can," said the Potter. "You told us when you met us, remember?" Neville Longbottom: the boy who lived, idiot uncle notwithstanding. Defenestrate him and he bounces, why should he give that up? "You're a _wizard_, Neville."

–_Oh, look at you, you radiant thing._

"You know," said Neville, "I'm really afraid of heights, but — I think I kind of enjoyed falling!"

"It's all in the mind," said the Potter, tapping the side of his head.

(Malfoy: _"Hello? Boingy-bottom? Oh, never mind..."_)

"And think of all the money you could save on parachutes, if you took up skydiving," continued the Potter, and found that he'd coined a word as far as the wizarding world was concerned.

"Sky..._diving_," said Neville staring up into the deep blue. "Wow..."

#

Madam Hooch returned with a replacement broomstick for Neville (apparently her own: _"This is my third-best stick, Mr Longbottom, do try not to break it on your way down"_) and they got on with the lesson...

...and when in the air life was but a dream, no doubt about it: Harry Potter loved magic, but flying was very nearly his _amour-de-soi_. In the air it was _his_ body and the Potter-_pro-tempore _was thoroughly relieved of command. Forget being relegated to the back seat, he was forcibly stuffed into the boot. Well, maybe the Dickey seat might be a better term. It was like riding a rail-less rollercoaster with a really plush seat, comfortably terrifying.

Harry was open to suggestions, so his passenger was able to get some nice photographic memories that might come in handy later — the lake, the clearings in the Forbidden Forest...

...aaand then it happened:

_Do a barrel roll_, thought the Potter-_pro-tem_ lazily.

And Harry Potter _did_.

And a white bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans parted company with his inside pocket and plunged toward the ground two hundred feet below.

_Fetch!_ thought the panicky Potter pro-tempore.

And Harry Potter _fetched._

...after that things got a bit complicated...

#

_Pro:_ Draco Malfoy had come over to the Gryffindor table of an evening voluntarily.

_Con:_ he wasn't happy.

"So," he said. "Potter. I understand you've gotten yourself placed as Seeker on the Gryffindor team. Congratulations."

Oh, thank goodness _that_ was all.

"Ah!" said the Potter to Draco Malfoy. "Haha. No. That's a mere rumour."

_(The McGonagall, towering over him like a deeply piqued thunderhead — even standing in the right place to be _backlit_, which was going a bit far: "Why, why, _why — _I've got to go talk to the Sorting Hat — no, the Headmaster said the decision was final...but you'd make a natural Seeker...Gryffindor _needs _a Seeker like you..._why did you have to be in two houses_?")_

"_Is_ it."

"All right, it's sort of true, but it's still a huge distortion, just ask Captain Flint! I'm...well, _backup_ Seeker for Slytherin _and_ Gryffindor."

_("Well, this is physical _education_," he had said. "It doesn't really matter who I play for, does it, academically speaking?" The McGonagall had stared straight into space for a while and then said, mostly to herself, "Interesting...would Slytherin nobble its own Seeker just to get their hands on — they'd certainly never dare nobble _ours _again —")_

Malfoy contemplated him. "So...you're going to do all the hard training and never actually get to play?"

"Barring legitimate accident, yes."

"Well," said Malfoy, brightening, "sucks to be you, then!"

"I _know! _I'm supposed to do two hours above the field over Wood and Flint every weeknight!" [_Pro:_ makes a start on giving Harry at least some of his life back. _Con:_ another two hours out of the day gone _and_ he was probably going to lose the mornings when Mr Filch got back. All his learning time was getting tied up with_ education!_] "Except Wednesday nights, I insisted."

"Oh." _Can't fool me, Draco, I saw that flicker of relief._ "Well, break a leg! Or both your arms, that's probably best."

"Thank you, I'll try."

Malfoy sauntered off; the Potter watched him go, wondered briefly how it was possible to walk that slowly without falling over, and turned back to the table.

#

Later in the Gryffindor common room, the Potter (_Rupert?_) sat in a comfy chair reading a book — very slowly, because Harry was interested in it. (_From Snidget To Widget, _it was called_, The Quiddity of Quidditch.)_

Fred and George were plotting in a corner. Percy was watching them like a hawk. Neville was drumming his fingers on a wizard chess set, waiting for Hermione to finish helping Ron, for lack of a better word, _study._

_Hermione:_ "And Doctor Universalis was...?"

_Ron (confidently):_ "Roger Bacon."

_H:_ "No, he's Doctor Mirabilis." _(Pause, obvious internal debate over whether to give him a hint.)_ "Roger Bacon invented a formula for the Philosopher's Stone that didn't work, so you're close."

_R: (not confidently)_ "Uh...John Duns Scotus?"

_H:_ "What? No! He's Doctor Subtilis. We won't get to transfigurational haeccity for _months_. Or next year—_are you peeking at the index?_"

_F/X: sound of finger being pulled from book._

_R: (lying)_ "No..."

_H: (despairing, lecturing)_ "Doctor Universalis was Albertus Magnus, who wrote the _Theatrum Chemicum_, including _Observations on the Philosopher's Stone_, which is why I _thought_ you weren't just guessing. We got wizard photography from his work with living silver nitrate."

_R: (resentfully)_ "Is he on a chocolate frog card?"

_H:_ "Is he _what_?"

_R: _"I said, is he on a chocolate frog card?"

"Not as of Chocolate Frog Series Twenty-Nine," said Rupert the Potter (that sounds _ridiculous_) from behind his book.

"Then why do we even need to know this stuff?!" exploded Ron. "How important can he _be_ if he's not on a chocolate frog card?"

"Actually," said the Potter, popping his head up, "you probably _don't_ need to know it. An awful lot of education is purely speculative."

He ducked back down behind his book because for some reason Hermione was giving him a dirty look, which was a pity because he quite wanted to explain how chocolate frog cards had originated as Chinese educational snacks. From the word _Tenjin,_ meaning to light up the mind — eat a choccie, read fun facts, maybe remember something due to the blood sugar rush.

He _liked_ explaining things.

_Thank you for reminding me of that, Harry._

#

Friday morning, and he'd finally, _finally_ gotten into the Trophy Room, and it was quite the subtle enigma, too.

Weaving around the display tables. applying polishing charms to dulled metal trophies — because that was, after all, Why He Was There, certainly not because he was hoping to find some sort of cursed artifact, dripping with clue, left behind by Trevor Doom, LLD — he wondered: _what am I not seeing? There's nothing interesting here, this is rubbish._

A ghostly head emerged from the loving cup he was polishing.

He leaped in the air and spun around and said "_Ahh!_"

"Boo," said Myrtle conversationally. "Thank you for making the effort, but I can tell you don't really mean it."

He shrugged. "Well, yeah, if you expect surprises they're not all that surprising, really. Company's good, I like a strange visiter now and again — what brings you round?"

"_Partly_ I had nothing else to do, _partly_ I couldn't sleep..."

"Ghosts sleep?"

"No."

"Oh. Sorry."

"It's all right, we don't get bored," she said. "If we were capable of boredom we'd all go stark raving mad, I expect. We _can_ zone out a bit...

"...but _mostly_ I remembered I never got round to asking you a question, and since it was after five I knew you'd be duckling about somewhere, so I came and looked."

"Duckling? You mean _swanning_."

"I've seen the way you run in the halls, so: no."

"Oh, thanks. _So_ much. —What's your question?"

"That quidditch bet of yours. How _did_ you figure out that that player was going to jump teams?"

He picked up a sad little brass shield for Services To The School and started buffing it. "Would you believe I got lucky? _Semper crescis_, good motto for a caretaker."

She looked up at the ceiling and closed her eyes — would that work? Why didn't she see through the lids? — and sighed mournfully.

"Semper crescis. Always waxing, get it?" he said. "Eh? Eh?"

"_O fortuna_ – luck – I get it, I _don't_ want it," she said, opening her eyes again and giving him a glare. "_And_ I don't believe in luck. —Well. _Bad_ luck, _that_ I believe in."

"Okay, call it intuition," he said, putting down the shield and picking up a Medal for Magical Merit.

"That's a label, not an explanation."

"All right, then," he said, huffing on the medal and buffing it on his robe, "I read a bunch of quidditch magazines and newsletters and that and applied the principle of psychosteganographic analysis."

There was a short pause.

"You're going to explain the explanation now," said Myrtle, reaching into her ghostly robe and pulling out her ghostly wand. "And you're going to use small words, because I know the Jelly-Legs Jinx."

He squinted at the tarnish on the medal. _What is this, verdigris? Can't be, it's gold._ "Steganography is the encoding of information inside other information. Broad example, arranging to print a book using two slightly different typefaces, spelling out a secret message using one of them. If you know what to look for you'll see it; if you don't, you won't, unless you're unusually observant and looking for patterns is your hobby."

"I'd just use different inks and special glasses," said Myrtle, folding her arms.

"Well, yeah, but then you'd have to worry about losing the glasses," he said, and set down the medal. It still wasn't clean. "—Anyway, _psycho_steganography is when people encode messages in what they say and do, knowingly or not.

"In this case, a certain quidditch player on a certain quidditch team gives interviews to at least one quidditch publication after every match. They tend toward a generic form. _We played to win, Mildred was on top form, looking good against Milton Keynes next week, the final depends on the outcome of Cheating Bastness versus Telling Porkies next week_ and so on.

"Then his pattern develops a glitch. He stops using stock phrases to certain frequently asked questions, starts using them in answer to others, avoids reporters from certain areas, talks to reporters from others.

"_And_ the manager of a team he's not on develops a broadly similar kind of glitch at roughly the same time.

"The rest is...simple?"

"No," said Myrtle.

"Complicated?"

"Keep going."

"Fiendishly clever?"

"That's more like it."

"Did you notice I didn't say _semiotic lacunae_? Could have done."

"Did _you_ notice you can still _walk_? Could change."

"_Unconscious_."

"What?"

Oops. There it was. Might as well own it. "The rest is unconscious. Well, a lot of it is. I do an embarrassing amount of thinking without thinking about it or even noticing. I mean, I consider myself a stark raving genius, because, well, _yeah_, but my unconscious outstrips me by orders of magnitude.

"I just wish it would tell me what it's up to more often."

She frowned. "You feed it your life's experiences and it filters them and gives you...quidditch tips."

"Well, why not? Quidditch is interesting."

"It is?"

He pointed to the membership roll of the (sadly disbanded) Hogwarts Philosophical Society; engraved at the head of it was the motto:

_**Omnia mirari etiam tritissima.  
**__Linnaeus._

"Take an interest in everything," he said.

"Oh. Well, that," said Myrtle.

[Of course, quidditch was unusually interesting, come to notice it. It was a universal constant. Everyone was into it, even Asenion Izzard was a quidditch buff. Up to a point it made sense: a spectator sport with plenty of violence for the kiddies and plenty of graphable statistics for nerdy grown-ups was a perfect recipe for broad popularity. But with _that_ degree of enthusiasm?

Oh. Oh ho ho. Wait. Of _course_ it's that popular, how could it not be?

It's a ritual. A ritual performed by teams containing the occultly significant number of _seven players._ _Every match is an act of magic in and of itself._ But why and to what end?

Obvious, really: In what passes for my memory, alchemists are silly people who save their own urine and discover phosphorous by accident. Here they're enormously puissant people who fail to run the world...because they're wrapped up in quidditch._ Quidditch is a memetically-engineered auto-hypnotic socio-magical control mechanism designed to tie up wizard minds!_

Okay, _that's_ sorted, back to the Trophy Room Problem.]

"Myrtle," he said.

"Yes?"

"What's wrong with this room?"

She looked around at the Trophy Room. "_Is_ there something wrong with it?"

"I'm pretty sure there is. Something about it doesn't fit."

"And your unconscious can't tell you?"

"Apparently. It's not absolutely reliable. What do _you_ see in this room? What catches _your_ eye?"

"The glass case labeled IN MEMORIAM."

Sigh._ Well, it would, wouldn't it?_ (Honorable Mention Triwizard Tournament, Achievement in Arithmancy...)

Her curiosity having finally been piqued, Myrtle floated around the trophy room, examining its contents closely. He circled after, not interfering.

_And what does she see? Awards, yes, lots of awards, all kinds of awards. Plaques, ribbons, medals, loving cups, scrolls, honor rolls..._

"These two are different," she announced abruptly, turning back to — the same items he'd just been fiddling with.

He bounded across the room, tripped over a paving stone and crashed lightly into the table. "Different how?" _Because _not _all kinds of awards, in fact. _Club _awards, yes — inter-_house _and inter-_school _competition awards — organisational membership lists, which are _collectives_..._

"They don't fit," said Myrtle. "Individual awards go home with the winners. I got honorary Perfect Attendance and Punctuality for my last year, they sent them to my parents. But some —" she pointed at the glass case.

"Persons emeritus," he suggested.

"Some people don't even have anyone to send things home to, so _their_ awards go in the glass case."

"_That's_ it, you clever girl!" said the Potter. (_"I'm fifty years older than you," she grumbled._) He picked up the two oddments. "In a room of _institutional_ memory: two _personal_ awards. To a former Head Boy." He waved the Medal for Magical Merit at the list of Head Boys, where its owner's name appeared in between Stìobhan MacArtair (1943) and Seán MacSeoin (1945), a Slytherin between two Hufflepuffs.

"Now, _this_ one —" he hefted the bland little shield for unspecified Services to the School and threw it over his shoulder and spun around and grabbed it on its way to the ground because it wasn't his to discard — "yeah, _this_ is nothing, you could probably get one of these for voluntary trash-picking or not mangling your silverware.

"But a gold medal for Magical Merit in _the_ school for magic? He should have taken it with him. If that wasn't possible it should be in the memorial case. Why on Magical Earth would a Slytherin Head Boy abandon an award like this?"

"I don't know," said Myrtle, and looked up at the Head Boy list. "He was at school with me. I probably ought to remember him, but I _was_ a bit preoccupied...he wasn't in my house, he wasn't in my year..."

"Always another mystery to investigate," said the Potter, just as the morning bell began to ring. _But not, apparently, right now._

"Oh, breakfast already?" said Myrtle. "I've got to go, then. The kitchen elves said they want to try me out on something called _bhut jolokia_."

"What?"

"Ghost pepper. Appropriate, isn't it?" She smiled and touched fingers to lips with surprise. "—Ooh, saliva, that's new. Well, I'll see you around, Harry." She drifted off through the floor in the general direction of the Great Hall.

#

He Harried up Perpetual Polish charms on every award in the room before he left, but he gave special attention to the Medal for Magical Merit. That one...

_Who were you, Tom Riddle?_

_...that_ one gleamed like honour bright when he was done.


End file.
